Boethius Quotes

“For in every ill turn of fortune the most unhappy sort of unfortunate man is the one who has been happy”
― Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

“In this way, Boethius served as a special exemplar. Just as the sixth-century philosopher lived in an age overrun by barbarians (“huge, fair-skinned, beer-drinking, boasting thanes”) and desperately gathered and saved whatever fragments he could from the old “high Pagan past,” so too did Lewis feel it his duty to save not this or that ancient author, but the general wisdom of the Long Middle Ages, and then vernacularize it for his world, which was now dominated by a new type of barbarian. His own age was one of “Proletarianism,” which was now, in a way similar to Boethius’s barbarians, cut off from the classical past and proud of its distance from classical antiquity: we are “self-satisfied to a degree perhaps beyond the self-satisfaction of any recorded aristocracy” we are women and men who have become as “practical as the irrational animals.” Having abandoned the study of the old, modern barbarians no longer have access to any values other than those “of modern industrial civilization,” and so, Lewis wondered if “we shall not have to re-convert men to real Paganism as a preliminary to converting them to Christianity.” In this way, Lewis followed the path of Boethius, who chose not to focus on “what divided him from Virgil, Seneca, Plato, and the old Republican heroes” but rather, “he preferred [a theme] that enabled him to feel how nearly they had been right, to think of them not as ‘they’ but as ‘we.’ Lewis’s vocation, like Boethius’s, was the humble one of making old books live again.”
― Jason Baxter

“Boethius, dunyada adaletin yokmus gibi gorunmesine hayiflanir. Cogu kez iyiler ve erdemliler aci cekerken kotuler gonenir. Felsefe, iyiyi arayislariyla nihai amaca, sahici mutluluga ulasma gucune sahip olduklari icin aslinda erdemlilerin odullendirildigini iddia eder. Kotuler yalnizca goneniyormus gibi gorunur:
Aslinda akillarini terk etmekle insanliktan cikarlar ve onlara ceza vermek yerine acimak ve tedavi etmek gerekir.”
― Nigel Warburton