Plotinus Quotes (5 Quotes)

Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.

Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not fine yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown his work. So do you also cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow or beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.

Knowledge has three degreesopinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense of the second, dialectic of the third, intuition.

God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that he is so.

Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being. We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being ugliness is in going over to another order knowing ourselves, we are beautiful in self-ignorance, we are ugly.