Plotinos: Complete Works, V. 1in Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods

“The purification of the Soul is simply to allow it to be alone; it is pure when it keeps no company.””

— Plotinus

“When we look outside of that on which we depend we ignore our unity; looking outward we see many faces; look inward and all is one head. If a man could but be turned about, he would see at once God and himself and the All.””

— Plotinus

“It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.””

— Plotinus

“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.””

— Plotinus

“Wherever it lies, under earth or over earth, the body will always rot. ””

— Plotinus

“To make the existence and coherent structure of this Universe depend upon automatic activity and upon chance is against all good sense.””

— Plotinus

“Before we had our becoming here, we existed There, men other than now; we were pure souls. Intelligence inbound with the entire of reality, not fenced off, integral to that All. [...] Then it was as if One voice sounded. One word was uttered and from every side an ear attended and received and there was an effective hearing; now we are become a dual thing, no longer that which we were at first, dormant, and in a sense no longer present.””

— Plotinus

“Bad men rule by the feebleness of the ruled; and this is just; the triumph of weaklings would not be just.””

— Plotinus

“The First, then, should be compared to light, the next [Spirit or Intellect] to the sun, and the third [soul] to the celestial body of the moon, which gets its light from the sun. (V-6-4)””

— Plotinus