Philo of Alexandria Quotes on Mind
Philo of Alexandria gave the mind a central and elevated place in his synthesis of Greek philosophy and Jewish scripture, and the quotes gathered here reflect it. For Philo the mind is the eye of the soul, the faculty by which a person perceives what the bodily senses cannot reach. He held that genuine understanding carries moral weight: a judge, he wrote, must remember that in trying a case he is himself on trial, and he lamented that those whose reason is darkened feel only outward injuries while remaining blind to the damage done to the mind itself. Philo also imagined wisdom as a school that never closes its doors to those who thirst for understanding. Drawn from his treatises, these passages present the mind as the soul's organ of insight and the seat of moral discernment.
Quotes
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“The mind is the eye of the soul.”
55. -
Attributed to Philo of Alexandria:
“What is essential is invisible to the eye; only the mind discerns it.”
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“A Judge must bear in mind that when he tries a case he is himself on trial.”
Special Laws , 1st century. -
“The legislator of the Jews in a bolder spirit went to a further extreme and in the practice of his “naked” philosophy, as they call it, ventured to speak of him who was possessed by love of the divine.”
Every Good Man is Free | 43. -
“Wisdom … never closes her school of thought but always opens her doors to those who thirst for the sweet water of discourse, and pouring on them an unstinted stream of undiluted doctrine, persuades them to be drunken with the drunkenness which is soberness itself.”
Every Good Man is Free | 13. -
“The majority, who through the blindness of their reason do not discern the damages which the soul has sustained, only feel the pain of external injuries, because the faculty of judgment, which alone can enable them to apprehend the damage to the mind, is taken from them.”
Every Good Man is Free | 55.