The Consolation of Philosophy

by Boethius

what is the end and purpose of things and the goal to which the whole o...

‘I did hear it once,’ I said, ‘but my memory has been ...

do you know the source from which all...

‘...

God.

‘How can it be then, that you know the beginning of things but d...

do you remember that you are a man?’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I said.

‘Can you, then, tell me wh...

‘Are you asking me if I know whether man is a rational ...

I do know it and I acknowledge that that ...

‘Are you sure you are not some...

‘Quite ...

‘Now I know the other cause, or rather the major cause of your illness: you have fo...

you are confused by loss of memory that you wept and claimed you had been banished and robbed of all your possessions.

it is because you don’t know the end and purpose of things that you think the wicked and the criminal have power and happiness.

because you have forgotten the means by which the world is governed you believe these ups and downs o...

These are grave causes and they lead not only to illne...

In your true belief about the world’s government – that it is subject to divine reason and not the haphazards of chance – there lies our g...

If you desire To look on truth And follow the path With unswerving course, Rid yourself Of joy and fear, Put hope to flight, And banish grief. The mind is clouded And bound in chains Where these hold sway.’

you are wasting away in pining and longing for your former good fortune. It is the loss of this which, as your imagination works upon you, has so corrupted your mind.

that monster, Fortune,

If you can recall to mind her character, her methods, and the kind of favour she proffers, you will see that in her you did not have and did not lose anything of value.

Let us bring to bear the persuasive powers of sweet-tongued rhetoric, powers which soon go astray from the true path unless they follow my instructions.

let us have as well Music, the maid-servant of my house, to sing us melodies of varying mood.

you are wrong if you think Fortune has changed towards you.

Change is her normal behaviour, her true nature.

You have discovered the changing faces of the random goddess.

To others she still veils herself, but to you she has revealed herself to the full.

If you are satisfied with her ways, you must accept them and not complain. But if you shudder to think of her unreliability, you must turn away and have n...

Do you really hold dear that kind of happiness which is destined to pass away?

what else is such a fleeting

Fortune’s very mutability deprives her threats of their terror and her enticements of their allure.

If after freely choosing her as the mistress to rule your life you want to draw up a law to control her coming and going, you will be acting without any justification and your very impatience will only worsen a lot which you cannot alter.

If you are trying to stop her wheel from turning, 1 you are of all men the most obtuse.

You have been receiving a favour as one who has had the use of another’s possessions, and you have no right to complain as if what you have lost was fully your own.

rise up on my wheel if you like, but don’t count it an injury when by the same token you begin to fall, as the rules of the game will require.

you should not wear yourself out by setting your heart on living according to a law of your own in a world that is shared by everyone.

No man is rich who shakes and groans Convinced that he needs more.’’

If the enjoyment of any earthly blessing brings with it any measure of happiness, the memory of that splendid day can never be destroyed by the burden however great of growing evil. I mean the day that you saw your two sons amid the crowding senators and the rapture of the people carried forth from your house to be consuls together

Perhaps you would like to reckon up the score with her? You will find this is the very first time she has turned an unfriendly eye upon you.

Why behave like a stranger newly arrived on the stage of life? You know there is no constancy in human affairs, when a single swift hour can often bring a man to nothing.

For even if you can’t expect any permanence in a life of chance events, on the last day of one’s life there is a kind of death for Fortune even when she stays with one.

What difference do you think it makes whether it is you that quit her by dying or she th...

In all adversity of fortune, the most wretched kind is once to have been happy.’

You are a happy man, then, if you know where your true happiness lies, since when the chief concern of mortal men is to keep their hold on life, you even now possess blessings which no one can doubt are more precious than life itself. So dry your tears.

No man is so completely happy that something somewhere does not clash with his condition. It is the nature of human affairs to be fraught with anxiety; they never prosper perfectly and they never remain constant.

Remember, too, that all the most happy men are over-sensitive. They have never experienced adversity and so unless everything obeys their slightest whim they are prostrated by every minor upset, so trifling are the things that can detract from the complete happiness of a man at the summit of fortune.

How many men do you think would believe themselves almost in heaven if they possessed even the smallest part of the luck you still enjoy?

nothing is miserable except when you think it so, and vice versa, all luck is good luck to the man ...