Marsilio Ficino.........................

Marsilio Ficino     1433-1499

Somehow, through all those years of book learning, I missed the story of Marsilio Ficino.  Born in the small town of Figline Valdarno, located southeast of Firenze (Florence) in Tuscany,  Ficino was a philosopher, a teacher, a translator,  an astrologer, a tutor to the Medici, and, heaven help us, a neoplatonist.  You can read more about him here and here.  Here are some quotes attributed to him.

“In these times I don't, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don't want what I know and want what I don't know.” 

“The soul exists partly in eternity and partly in time.” 

“Why do we think love is a magician? Because the whole power of magic consists in love. The work of magic is the attraction of one thing by another because of a certain affinity of nature.” 

"Artists in each of the arts seek after and care for nothing but love."

"The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet."

"The fate of the poor shepherd, who, blinded and lost in the snow-storm, perishes in a drift within a few feet of his cottage door, is an emblem of the state of man."

"Smell, taste, and touch are entirely material, and rather titillate the sense-organs than penetrate the depths of the soul. But musical sound by the movement of the air moves the body: by purified air it excites the aerial spirit which is the bond of body and soul: by emotion it affects the senses, and at the same time the soul: by meaning it works on the mind: finally, by the very movement of the subtle air it penetrates strongly: by its contemperation it flows smoothly: by the conformity of its quality it floods us with a wonderful pleasure: by its nature, both spiritual and material, it at once seizes, and claims as its own, man in his entirety."