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“Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.”
― Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

“You are the greatest comfort for exhausted spirits. By the weight of your tenets and the delightfulness of your singing you have so refreshed me that I now think myself capable of facing the blows of Fortune. You were talking of cures that were rather sharp. The thought of them no longer makes me shudder; in fact I'm so eager to hear more, I fervently beg you for them.'

'I knew it,' She replied. 'Once you began to hang onto my words in silent attention, I was expecting you to adopt this attitude, or rather, to be more exact, I myself created it in you. The remedies still to come are, in fact, of such a kind that they taste bitter to the tongue, but grow sweet once they are absorbed.
But you say you are eager to hear more. You would be more than eager to hear if you knew the destination I am trying to bring you to.'

I asked what it was and she told me that it was true happiness.

'Your mind dreams of it,' she said, 'but your sight is clouded by shadows of happiness and cannot see reality.'

I begged her to lead on and show me the nature of true happiness without delay.

'For you,' she said, 'I will do so gladly.”
― Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

“If happiness is the highest good of a rational nature, and if what can be taken from you in any way cannot be the highest (for what cannot be taken away ranks higher than what can), it is obvious that the fluidity of Fortune cannot hope to win happiness. 24”
― Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

“Indeed, the condition of human nature is just this; man towers above the rest of creation so long as he realizes his own nature, and when he forgets it, he sinks lower than the beasts. For other living things to be ignorant of themselves, is natural; but for man it is a defect.”
― Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy