Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy

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Who fain would sow the fallow field, And see the growing corn, Must first remove the useless weeds, The bramble and the thorn.

Boethius
The strength which potent Nature brings To reins which guide the world along...

Boethius
Then said she, "Think you that this universe is guided only at random and by mere chance? or think you there is any rule of reason constituted in it? "

Boethius
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.

Boethius
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?

Boethius
Chance, too which seems to rush along with slack reins, is bridled and governed by law

Boethius
Think then thus upon it, and see that it is but a slight thing of no weight. As you have learnt from astronomers' shewing, the whole circumference of the earth is but as a point compared with the size of the heavens. That is, if you compare the earth with the circle of the universe, it must be reckoned as of no size at all.

Boethius
No man can ever be secure until he has been forsaken by Fortune.

Boethius
Whose happiness is so firmly established that he has no quarrel from any side with his estate of life?

Boethius
I scarcely know the meaning of your question; much less can I answer it.

Boethius
Every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home.

Boethius
Wherefore not without cause has one of your own followers asked, "If God is, whence come evil things? If He is not, whence come good?"

Boethius
I see how happiness and misery lie inseparably in the deserts of good and bad men.

Boethius
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.

Boethius
Who can give law to lovers? Love is a greater law to itself.

Boethius
All fortune is good fortune; for it either rewards, disciplines, amends, or punishes, and so is either useful or just.

Boethius
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.

Boethius
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.

Boethius
Thus, where'er the drift of hazard Seems most unrestrained to flow, Chance herself is reined and bitted, And the curb of law doth know.

Boethius
I who once wrote songs with keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.

Boethius
Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content.

Boethius
What place can be left for random action, when God constraineth all things to order?

Boethius
If you expect a physician to help you, you must lay bare your wound.

Boethius
If you would give every man as he deserves, then love the good and pity those who are evil.

Boethius
If one were to define chance as the outcome of a random movement which interlocks with no causes, I should maintain that it does not exist at all, that it is a wholly empty term denoting nothing substantial.

Boethius
Who hath so entire happiness that he is not in some part offended with the condition of his estate?

Boethius
In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.

Boethius
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.

Boethius