Quotations: Platonism

The 11 quotations from the philosophers tied to this movement, each linked to the position it expresses.

Relation

Territory

Plato8 quotations

A beauty that always is, neither coming to be nor passing away, neither increasing nor diminishing; nor again beautiful in one part and ugly in another.

On , their position:

Nature herself shows that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, and the more capable than the less.

On , their position:

Seeking and learning are in fact nothing but recollection.

On , their position:

The Good is not being, but still beyond being, surpassing it in dignity and power.

On , their position:

This dwelling is the prison; the light of the fire in it is the sun; and the upward journey is the ascent of the soul into the intelligible region.

On , their position:

Those who practise philosophy in the right way are in training for dying.

On , their position:

To them, would not the truth be literally nothing but the shadows of the artificial objects?

On , their position:

What is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which is always becoming and never is?

On , their position:

Plotinus3 quotations

It is none of the things of which it is the source; such is its nature that, though nothing can be affirmed of it, not name, not reason, we can yet say something concerning it.

On , their position:

This is the life of gods and of godlike and blessed men: a deliverance from all things here below, the flight of the alone to the Alone.

On , their position:

Withdraw into yourself and look: and if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the sculptor of a statue that is to be made beautiful.

On , their position: