The Stone was not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you wanted, the two things most human beings would choose above all. The trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them. After his failure, Voldemort correctly deduced that Dumbledore would destroy the stone to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands again. Voldemort had then given up on the stone and waited for another method to regenerate his body. He only wanted the stone to create a body for himself, and nothing more, as being dependent on the Elixir and Stone for his immortality was for him unacceptable. When Dumbledore's Army met for the first time in the Hog's Head Inn in 1995, Neville Longbottom referred to it incorrectly as the "Philological Stone" when discussing Harry's past achievements. The Stone could turn any metal into pure gold, and produced the Elixir of Life, which granted immortality.
The Stone was variously described as red and white in the many old texts in which it appeared. These colours were important in most accounts of alchemy, and were often interpreted as having symbolic meaning.

According to a page in Advanced Potion-Making, "the Philosopher's Stone was believed to mystically amplify the user's knowledge of alchemy so much that anything was attainable."