- Lived:
- c. 204–270 CE · probably born in Lycopolis, Egypt; taught in Rome
- Tradition:
- Founder of Neoplatonism — the last great school of pagan philosophy
- The Big Idea:
- All reality flows out from a single, perfect source — the One — the way light flows from the sun; and everything, including you, secretly yearns to flow back.
- In their words:
- "Withdraw into yourself and look."
- If you remember one thing:
- He is antiquity's most rigorous mystic: a man who claimed the highest truth cannot be put into words — and then argued his way toward it, step by logical step, and reported reaching it four times.