Boethius

Constantinople

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.”

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.

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.”

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.”

Quotes

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

Quotes “Nothing is miserable unless you think it is

so.”

Quotes “For in all adversity of fortune the worst

sort of misery is to have been happy.”

Quotes “In other living creatures the ignorance of

themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice.”

Quotes “A man content to go to heaven alone will

never go to heaven.”

Quotes “Who would give a law to lovers? Love is

unto itself a higher law.”

Quotes “If there is anything good about nobility it

is that it enforces the necessity of avoiding degeneracy.”

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."

Quotes “Another cause of your sickness, and the

most important: you have forgotten what you are.”

Quotes “He who has calmly reconciled his life to

fate ... can look fortune in the face.”

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.”

Quotes “The good is the end toward which all

things tend.”

Quotes “He who is virtuous is wise; and he who is

wise is good; and he who is good is happy.”

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.”