born: 204 city: Asyut or Lycopolis, Egypt, Roman Empire philosophy: Neoplatonism nationality: Rome occupation: philosopher ethnicity: Greek died: 270 city: Campania, Roman Empire
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Knowledge has three degrees--opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition.
If one wants to know the nature of a thing, one must examine it in its pure state, since every addition to a thing is an obstacle to the knowledge of that thing. When you examine it, then, remove from it everything that is not itself; better still *remove all your stains from yourself and examine yourself*, and you will have faith in your immortality.
You increase yourself when you reject everything other than the All, and when you have rejected it, the All will be present to you...The All had no need to *come* in order to be present. If it is *not* present, the reason is that it is *you* who have distanced yourself from it. "Distancing yourself" does not mean leaving it to go someplace else - for it would be there, too. Rather it means turning away from the All, despite the fact that it is there.
