Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Plotinus (Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mystic)

Plotinus (c.205–270 CE) was a Greek Philosopher and mystic. He is the founder of the Neoplatonic School of philosophy.

Born in Lycopolis, Egypt, of Roman parents, Plotinus studied in Alexandria under Ammonius Saccas, and in Persia, and settled in Rome in 244 CE. He became a well-liked lecturer, promoting asceticism and contemplative life.

Plotinus’s 54 works, produced between 253 CE and 270 CE, were edited after his death by his friend and pupil Porphyry, who organized them into six groups of nine books, or Enneads. They established the foundations of Neoplatonism as a philosophical approach, combining the doctrines of Plato with those of Pythagoras, Aristotle, and the Stoics.

Plotinus indirectly exercised much influence on early Christian theology, esp. on Saint Augustine of Hippo and Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. Neoplatonism was the dominant philosophy in Europe for a thousand years, establishing a linkage between ancient and medieval thought. It became the biggest challenger to Christianity during the declining years of the ancient world.

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

We are not separated from spirit, we are in it.
Plotinus
Topics: Spirit

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.
Plotinus
Topics: Beauty

Beauty is rather a light that plays over the symmetry of things than that symmetry itself.
Plotinus
Topics: Beauty

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
Topics: Beauty, Music

Cease not to be the sculptor of thine own image.
Plotinus

Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.
Plotinus
Topics: Fear, Soul

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.
Plotinus
Topics: Beauty

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