70 Quotes by Plotinus

Knowing demands the organ fitted to the object.

Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.

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

If someone with the right conduct tries to attain to something that lies outside of it, is his goal not the right conduct.

The world is knowable, harmonious, and good.

A dogma recognized throughout antiquity... (that) the soul expiates its sins in the darkness of the infernal regions and... afterwards... passes into new bodies, there to undergo new trials.

Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?Clearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as employing the body, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third entity, again, there are two possible modes: it might be either a blend or a distinct form due to the blending.

The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at one with Him in the noble love of a daughter for a noble father; but coming to human birth and lured by the courtships of this sphere, she takes up with another love, a mortal, leaves her father and falls.

It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.