The Consolation of Philosophy

by Boethius

All the gifts of Fortune are external; they can never truly be our own. Man cannot find his good in worldly possessions. Riches bring anxiety and trouble.—CH.

Is Fortune's presence dear to thee if she cannot be trusted to stay, and though she will bring sorrow when she is gone?

All passes.

So true is it that nothing is wretched, but thinking makes it so, and conversely every lot is happy if borne with equanimity.

the wealth which was thought to make a man independent rather puts him in need of further protection.

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

Man himself, likewise, is viewed in one way by Sense, in another by Imagination, in another way, again, by Thought, in another by pure Intelligence.

For whatever lives in time is a present proceeding from the past to the future, and there is nothing set in time which can embrace the whole space of its life together. To-morrow's state it grasps not yet, while it has already lost yesterday's; nay, even in the life of to-day ye live no longer than one brief transitory moment. Whatever, therefore, is subject to the condition of time, although, as Aristotle deemed of the world, it never have either beginning or end, and its life be stretched to the whole extent of time's infinity, it yet is not such as rightly to be thought eternal.