Your soul existed before your birth, your soul will exist after your death.

Plotinus is a neo-Platonist, so he would encourage us to go back to Plato.

When you're seeking after bodily pleasure of food and drink for example, this is going to prevent you from doing what you should be doing which is contemplating.

There's going to be this realm of Platonic forms and then there's going to be this single mind, the 'nous', which grasps them.

This condition of uncertainty and unrest in the Roman Empire might explain why at Plotinus' philosophy encourages us to sort of flee from the physical world and towards the world of ideas.

Unlike later Neo-Platonists, Plotinus says that our souls are always connected to the universal intellect and that we never really fall away.

In fact one of the things about Plotinus is that he maybe not singlehandedly, but I think more than anyone else, killed off the variety and dissension among the philosophical schools of antiquity.

We do each have an intellect but there's a universal intellect which is the same for everybody, as it were. And this single intellect is grasping the platonic forms.

We do have intellects and Plotinus controversially thought that even though we might not be aware of it, our souls are always connected to the intellect. They never fully descend as he would put it.

The body is some kind of image of you, it's kind of something that's just attached to your soul, some kind of outside principle, which doesn't really represent who you really are.

The body distracts your soul.

Pray for the prosperity of your soul.

I have my own theory: ignorance is bliss. The less you know, the more confident you can be in tackling things.

The failure of the nation lies in the failure of its citizens.

One of the major keys to success is to keep moving forward on the journey, making the best of the detours and interruptions, turning adversity into advantage.

That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.

It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

I don't know how to speak to everybody, only to somebody.

Never underestimate the power that one good workout can have on your mind. Keeping the dream alive is half the battle.

Love is the most universal experience. There is nothing more important than love, there is nothing more meaningful than love, and there is nothing more human in people's relationships than love.

Begin each day with the expectation that it will bring something new, something to which you can say yes.