Quotes from Plotinus

attention to trifles is inconsistent with great genius of every kind

Those incapable of thinking gravely read gravity into frivolties which correspond to their own frivolous nature.

A gang of lads, morally neglected, and in that respect inferior to the intermediate class, but in good physical training, attack and throw another set, trained neither physically nor morally, and make off with their food and their dainty clothes. What more is called for than a laugh?

The sphere of sense, the Soul in its slumber; for all of the Soul that is in body is asleep and the true getting-up is not bodily but from the body: in any movement that takes the body with it there is no more than passage from sleep to sleep, from bed to bed.

What, then, is the achieved Sage? One whose Act is determined by the higher phase of the Soul.

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.

To set oneself above intellect is immediately to fall outside it.

That which is afraid is that which is capable of being affected.

To see the supreme which is also the means to the vision; for that which illuminates the Soul is that which is to see.

Knowledge has three degrees--opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, logic; of the third, insight.

This is why we must break away towards the High: we dare not keep ourselves set towards the sensuous principle, following the images of sense, or towards the merely vegetative, intent upon the gratifications of eating and procreation; our life must be pointed towards the Intellective, towards the Intellectual-Principle, to- wards God.

Not even a God would have the right to deal a blow for the unwarlike: the law decrees that to come safe out of battle is for fighting men, not for those that pray. The harvest comes home not for praying but for tilling...we have no right to complain of the ignoble getting the richer harvest if they are the only workers in the fields, or the best.

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

Every evildoer began by despising the Gods; and one not previously corrupt, taking to this contempt, even though in other respects not wholly bad, becomes an evildoer by the very fact.

Because of the power and nature of Good, evil is not just evil; since it appeared of necessity, it is bound with certain beautiful chains, like prisoners bound with golden chains, hidden by these, so that, being like this, it is not seen by the gods, and human beings do not always have to look at evil. But whenever they look, they are accompanied by images of Beauty to recollect.

To see the supreme which is also the means to the vision; for that which illuminates the Soul id that which is to see.

the acting force in the Sage is the Intellective Principle [the diviner phase of the human Soul] which therefore is itself his presiding spirit or is guided by a presiding spirit of its own, no other than the very Divinity.

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

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