40 Quotes by Boethius
Boethius, a Roman philosopher and statesman, made important contributions to the fields of logic, mathematics, and philosophy during the late Roman Empire. His most famous work, "The Consolation of Philosophy," explores themes of fate, free will, and the nature of happiness. Written while he was imprisoned, Boethius contemplates the challenges and injustices of life, seeking solace and wisdom in the teachings of philosophy.
His work played a significant role in the transmission of Greek philosophy to medieval Europe, shaping the development of philosophical thought in the Middle Ages. Boethius's intellectual legacy continues to be influential, particularly in the areas of logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of ethics.
Boethius Quotes
It's my belief that history is a wheel. 'Inconstancy is my very essence,'? says the wheel. Rise up on my spokes if you like but don't complain when you're cast back down into the depths. Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it's also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away.
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it. (Meaning)
If there is a God, whence proceed so many evils? If there is no God, whence cometh any good?
Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it - even if we so desired.
Balance out the good things and the bad that have happened in your life and you will have to acknowledge that you are still way ahead. You are unhappy because you have lost those things in which you took pleasure? But you can also take comfort in the likelihood that what is now making you miserable will also pass away.
He who is virtuous is wise; and he who is wise is good; and he who is good is happy.
Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.
Wretched men cringe before tyrants who have no power, the victims of their trivial hopes and fears. They do not realise that anger is hopeless, fear is pointless and desire all a delusion. He whose heart is fickle is not his own master, has thrown away his shield, deserted his post, and he forges the links of the chain that holds him.
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.
Inconsistency is my very essence; it is the game I never cease to play as I turn my wheel in its ever changing circle, filled with joy as I bring the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top
In every kind of adversity, the bitterest part of a man's affliction is to remember that he once was happy.
So it follows that those who have reason have freedom to will or not to will, although this freedom is not equal in all of them. Human souls are more free when they persevere in the contemplation of the mind of God, less free when they descend to the corporeal, and even less free when they are entirely imprisoned in earthly flesh and blood.
One's virtue is all that one truly has, because it is not imperiled by the vicissitudes of fortune.
He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate, and set proud death beneath his feet, can look fortune in the face, unbending both to good and bad; his countenance unconquered.
So nothing is ever good or bad unless you think it so, and vice versa. All luck is good luck to the man who bears it with equanimity.
Love has three kinds of origin, namely: suffering, friendship and love. A human love has a corporal and intellectual origin.
A person is an individual substance of a rational nature.
Good men seek it by the natural means of the virtues; evil men, however, try to achieve the same goal by a variety of concupiscences, and that is surely an unnatural way of seeking the good. Don't you agree?
No man can ever be secure until he has been forsaken by Fortune.
Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content.
Contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens, and then at last cease to admire worthless things.
The completely simultaneous and perfect possession of unlimited life at a single moment.
A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven.
The science of numbers ought to be preferred as an acquisition before all others, because of its necessity and because of the great secrets and other mysteries which there are in the properties of numbers. All sciences partake of it, and it has need of none.
Every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home.
For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort of misery is to have been happy.
For in every ill-turn of fortune the most unhappy sort of unfortunate man is the one who has been happy
All fortune is good fortune; for it either rewards, disciplines, amends, or punishes, and so is either useful or just.
As far as possible, join faith to reason.
Love binds people too, in matrimony's sacred bonds where chaste lovers are met, and friends cement their trust and friendship. How happy is mankind, if the love that orders the stars above rules, too, in your hearts.
Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior.
Man is so constituted that he then only excels other things when he knows himself.
You know when you have found your prince because you not only have a smile on your face but in your heart as well. Love puts the fun in together, the sad in apart, and the joy in a heart. Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.
The good is the end toward which all things tend.
Whose happiness is so firmly established that he has no quarrel from any side with his estate of life?
If there is anything good about nobility it is that it enforces the necessity of avoiding degeneracy.
Give me Thy light, and fix my eyes on Thee!
Whose souls, albeit in a cloudy memory, yet seek back their good, but, like drunk men, know not the road home.
In other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice.
He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate can look fortune in the face.
― Boethius Quotes
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Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
