Plotinus quotes

Plotinus was a Greek philosopher and the founder of Neoplatonism. His teachings profoundly shaped later philosophy, especially in the realms of metaphysics and mysticism. He influenced generations of thinkers in both the Western and Islamic philosophical traditions. Here are 33 of his quotes:

Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.

Plotinus

Knowing demands the organ fitted to the object.

Plotinus

Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us.

Plotinus

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

We may treat of the Soul as in the body - whether it be set above it or actually within it - since the association of the two constitutes the one thing called the living organism, the Animate.Now from this relation, from the Soul using the body as an instrument, it does not follow that the Soul must share the body's experiences: a man does not himself feel all the experiences of the tools with which he is working.

Plotinus

Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?

Plotinus

When the soul has descended into generation (from its first divine condition) she partakes of evil, and is carried a great way into a state the opposite of her first purity and integrity, to be entirely merged in which, is nothing more than to fall into a dark mire. ...The soul dies as much as it is possible for the soul to die: and the death to her is, while baptized or immersed in the present body, to descend into matter, and be wholly subjected by it; and after departing thence to lie there til it shall arise and turn its face away from the abhorrent filth. This is what is meant by falling asleep in Hades, of those who have come there.

Plotinus

Hence, as Narcissus, by catching at the shadow, plunged himself in the stream and disappeared, so he who is captivated by beautiful bodies, and does not depart from their embrace, is precipitated, not with his body, but with his soul, into a darkness profound and repugnant to intellect (the higher soul), through which, remaining blind both here and in Hades, he associates with shadows.

Plotinus

All teems with symbol; the wise man is the man who in any one thing can read another.

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

The soul that beholds beauty becomes beautiful.

Plotinus

Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe.

Plotinus

You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason.

Plotinus

Knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.

Plotinus

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

Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.

Plotinus

We are not separated from spirit, we are in it.

Plotinus

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

It is precisely because there is nothing within the One that all things are from it.

Plotinus

There is one and the same soul in many bodies.

Plotinus

The Soul of each one of us is sent, that the universe may be complete.

Plotinus

We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order.

Plotinus