| SPIRIT OF THE WORLD |
| MANY VOICES / ONE TRUTH |
| Gathered and organized and introduced by
JoAnn Kite
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| Take a few minutes to click through and explore this revealing masterpiece of visionary spiritual synopsis |
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THE ESSENTIAL PLOTINUS
Translated by Elmer O'Brien, S.J.
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| 1 |
"The cosmos is a living organism." Plotinus, 'The Intelligence, The Ideas, and Being'
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"Nothing hinders anything from sharing in the Good to the extent it is able." Plotinus, 'The Descent of the Soul'
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| 3 |
"The One, transcendent to all differentiation and form, is the source of all." Elmer O'Brien, S.J., translator
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"Self-knowledge reveals to the soul that its natural motion is not, if uninterrupted, in a straight line, but circular, as around some inner object, about a center, the point to which it owes its origin. If the soul knows this, it will move around this center from which it came, will cling to it and commune with it as indeed all souls should….for divinity consists in being attached to the center." Plotinus, 'The Good or The One'
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| 5 |
"The cosmos is ensouled….It is in The Soul, which bears it up, and shares in it wholly." Plotinus, 'The Soul'
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| 6 |
"It is by The One that all beings are beings." Plotinus, 'The Good or The One'
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| 7 |
"The One…is present to those who are prepared for it and are able to receive it, to enter into harmony with it, to grasp and to touch it by virtue of their likeness to it, by virtue of that inner power similar to and stemming from The One when it is in that state in which it was when it originated from The One. Thus will The One be 'seen' as far as it can become an object of contemplation." Plotinus, 'The Good or The One'
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| 8 |
"The One is the foundation of all other things and gives them, at one and the same time, existence and location." Plotinus, 'The Good or The One'
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| 9 |
"To The One the soul must return: it is the law embedded in its ontological structure." Elmer O'Brien, S.J., translator
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| 10 |
"Awareness of The One comes to us…by a presence transcending knowledge." Plotinus, 'The Good or The One'
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| 11 |
"The imagination is a power that is, as it were, intellectual. Appetite and impulse are obedient to imagination and to reason." Plotinus, 'The Soul'
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| 12 |
"Within this world-in-little, man, the cyclic rhythm perceptible throughout the universe-at-large, the macrocosm, is recurrently portrayed." Elmer O'Brien, S.J., translator
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| 13 |
"It is because of The One that we breathe and have our being." Plotinus, 'The Good or The One'
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| 14 |
"We are always around The One. If we were not, we would dissolve and cease to exist. Yet our gaze does not remain fixed upon The One. When we look at it, we then attain the end of our desires and find rest. Then it is that, all discord past, we dance an inspired dance around it." Plotinus, 'The Good or The One'
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"True knowledge of self and true knowledge of God are so intimately linked within the soul that, if the soul is purified of all that is not itself, it knows at one and the same time itself, and in itself, God." Elmer O'Brien, S.J., translator
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| 16 |
"The divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the like; and by these the wing of the soul is nourished, and grows apace." Plato, 'Phaedrus'
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| 17 |
"There is at the core of every existing thing an ontic desire for what is lacking to its perfectness, and this perfectness it can find in its fullness solely within that which initially engendered it." Elmer O'Brien, S.J., translator
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"The soul is of the same nature as The Soul to which must be ascribed all that is vital and beautiful in the cosmos." Elmer O'Brien, S.J., translator
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| 19 |
"Plotinus sees bright shoots of everlastingness in all creation." Elmer O'Brien, S.J.
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| 20 |
"The world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God." Plato, 'Timaeus'
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| 21 |
"Souls are responsive one to another because they all come from the same soul – The Soul." Plotinus, 'The Soul'
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| 22 |
"What, then is The One? It is what makes all things possible. Without it nothing would exist." Plotinus, 'Contemplation'
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| 23 |
"As the genus contains all the species or as the whole contains all the parts, The Intelligence contains all beings." Plotinus, 'The Intelligence, The Ideas, and Being'
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"The Good is the cause of life, of thought, of being." Plotinus, 'Beauty'
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"Every particular thing is linked to that divine being in whose likeness it is made." Plotinus, 'The Soul'
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We are gathering together the primary insights of spirituality and bringing them together into one place.
This archive contains 11,754 quotes, taken from 635 references,
organized in terms of 39 primary categories. Quotes are randomized and appear in a different way at every click.
Explore the navigation options to review these insights.
We include
- All major spiritual and religious traditions, from all cultures, and all historical epochs
- Major psychologists, philosophers, writers, scholars and leading religious personalities
- Sources in classical religion as well as voices from new consciousness, esotericism and mysticism
- Choices are guided by the spirit of oneness, love, kindness, inclusion and community
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2,838,806
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