Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

Ancius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480 – 525) was a Roman Christian philosopher, poet, and politician.

Sourced

De Consolatione Philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy)

• Nec speres aliquid nec extimescas,
  exarmaueris impotentis iram;
  at quisquis trepidus pauet uel optat,
  quod non sit stabilis suique iuris,
  abiecit clipeum locoque motus
  nectit qua ualeat trahi catenam.
  • Translation: If first you rid yourself of hope and fear
    You have dismayed the tyrant's wrath:
    But whosoever quakes in fear or hope,
    Drifting and losing his mastery,
    Has cast away his shield, has left his place,
    And binds the chain with which he will be bound.
    • Book I, section 4

• In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.
  • Book II, section 4, line 4

• Who hath so entire happiness that he is not in some part offended with the condition of his estate?
  • Book II, section 4, line 41

• Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content.
  • Book II, section 4, line 64

• From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend —
  Path, motive, guide, original and end.
  • Book III, section 9, line 27

• Quis legem det amantibus?
  maior lex amor est sibi.
  • Who can give law to lovers? Love is a greater law to itself.
    • Book III, section 12, line 47

• Good men seek it by the natural means of the virtues; evil men, however, try to achieve the same goal by a variety of concupiscences, and that is surely an unnatural way of seeking the good. Don't you agree?
  • Book 4, Prose 2, 524. Translated from Latin by Richard Green.

• Sic quae permissis fluitare uidetur habenis
  fors patitur frenos ipsaque lege meat.
  • Thus, where'er the drift of hazard
    Seems most unrestrained to flow,
    Chance herself is reined and bitted,
    And the curb of law doth know.
    
    • Book V, section 2, lines 21-4

Unsourced

• "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."