“And so sovereign Providence has often produced a remarkable effect--evil men making other evil men good. For some, when they think they suffer injustice at the hands of the worst of men, burn with hatred for evil men, and being eager to be different from those they hate, have reformed and become virtuous. It is only the power of God to which evils may also be good, when by their proper use He elicits some good result.”

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

“Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.”

“In other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature but in men it is a vice.”

“Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.”

“He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate ... can look fortune in the face.”

“If there is anything good about nobility it is that it enforces the necessity of avoiding degeneracy”

“You have the chief spark of your health's fire, for you have true knowledge of the hand that guides the universe.”

“Boethius moved from considering history from the actor's point of view to a "timeless" eternal view. From the divine perspective, nothing is ever utterly lost, because all of life is possessed by God in the eternal now. Though time was gnawing away at Boethius and stealing all he valued, God was beyond time and loss. Gaining this philosophical vantage allowed the last Roman to become one of the first men of the Middle Ages.”

“In other living creatures ignorance of self is nature”

“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.”