Life here with the things of the earth is a sinking, a defeat, a failing of the wing. Plotinus More Quotes by Plotinus More Quotes From Plotinus The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together. Plotinus starstogethersky Knowledge has three degrees--opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition. Plotinus illuminationmeanknowledge Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful as yet, do as the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful; the sculptor cuts away here, smoothes there, makes this line lighter, this other purer, until he or she has shown a beautiful face upon the statue. Plotinus finding-yourselfcuttingbeautiful Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts. Plotinus midwaybeastmankind Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe Plotinus universesoul You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason. Plotinus infinitewisdomfaith We must not run after it, but we must fit ourselves for the vision and then wait tranquilly for it, as the eye waits on the rising of the Sun which in its own time appears above the horizon and gives itself to our sight. Plotinus eyerunningpatience Knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly. Plotinus ignorancebeautifulknowledge We must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing...a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use. Plotinus birthrighteyeuse Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sun-like, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful. Plotinus eyesoulbeautiful Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us. Plotinus determineactiondoe Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine. Plotinus cuttinglightperfect And this is the life of the Gods, and of Godlike men, a life without love of the world, a flight of the Alone to the Alone. Plotinus flightlife-is In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view; the vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical. Plotinus contemplationvisionviews Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations so words and in all kinds of music; for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life, in actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues. Plotinus beautifulbeautycharacter It is precisely because there is nothing within the One that all things are from it. Plotinus all-things We are not separated from spirit, we are in it. Plotinus spirit Before we had our becoming here, we existed There, men other than now; we were pure souls. Intelligence inbound with the entire of reality, not fenced off, integral to that All. [...] Then it was as if One voice sounded. One word was uttered and from every side an ear attended and received and there was an effective hearing; now we are become a dual thing, no longer that which we were at first, dormant, and in a sense no longer present. Plotinus voicemenreality Beauty is rather a light that plays over the symmetry of things than that symmetry itself. Plotinus lightplaybeauty Never stop working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, until you see self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat. Plotinus perseveranceshiningself
