Boethius

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Boethius
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Constantinople
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The Consolation Of Philosophy

• The Consolation of Philosophy was written during
  Boethius' one year imprisonment while awaiting
  trial, and eventual horrific execution, for the
  crime of treason.

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The Wheel of Fortune

• The Wheel of Fortune became a huge symbol for a
  thousand years, and simply refers to the fact
  that we all have to live not knowing when fortune
  will smile or frown on us.

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Henry Chadwick

• If the Consolation contains nothing
  distinctively Christian, it is also relevant that
  it contains nothing specifically pagan
  either...it is a work written by a Platonist
  who is also a Christian, but is not a Christian
  work.

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Boethius On Justice

• Criminals are not to be abused, rather treated
  with sympathy and respect, using the analogy of
  doctor and patient to illustrate the ideal
  relationship between criminal and prosecutor.

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Quotes

• Music is part of us, and either ennobles or
  degrades our behavior.

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Quotes

• Nothing is miserable unless you think it is so.

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Quotes

• For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort
  of misery is to have been happy.

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Quotes

• In other living creatures the ignorance of
  themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice.

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Quotes

• A man content to go to heaven alone will never
  go to heaven.

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Quotes

• Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto
  itself a higher law.

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Quotes

• If there is anything good about nobility it is
  that it enforces the necessity of avoiding
  degeneracy.

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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."

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Quotes

• Another cause of your sickness, and the most
  important you have forgotten what you are.

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Quotes

• He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate
  ... can look fortune in the face.

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Quotes

• If chance is defined as an event produced by
  random motion without any causal nexus, I would
  say that there is no such thing as chance.

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Quotes

• The good is the end toward which all things
  tend.

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Quotes

• He who is virtuous is wise and he who is wise
  is good and he who is good is happy.

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Summary

• The Middle Ages, with their vivid sense of an
  overruling fate, found in Boethius an
  interpretation of life closely akin to the spirit
  of Christianity.