Boethius
Roman mathematician Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, imprisoned on charges of treason, wrote
The Consolation of Philosophy
, his greatest work, an investigation of destiny and free will, while awaiting his execution.
His ancient and prominent noble family of Anicia included many consuls and Petronius Maximus and Olybrius, emperors. After Odoacer deposed the last western emperor, Flavius Manlius Boethius, his father, served as consul in 487.
Boethius entered public life at a young age and served already as a senator before the age of 25 years in 504. Boethius served as consul in 510 in the kingdom of the Ostrogoths.
In 522, Boethius saw his two sons serve as consuls. Theodoric the Great, king, suspected Boethius of conspiring with the eastern empire eventually. Jailed, Boethius composed his treatise on fortune, death, and other issues. He most popularly influenced the Middle Ages.
People linked Boethius and Rithmomachia, a board game.
“Contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens, and then at last cease to admire worthless things.”
“Man is so constituted that he then only excels other things when he knows himself.”
“И тъй, не е за чудене, че в бурното море на живота ни блъскат силни ветрове, нас, на които преди всичко е писано да не се нравим на порочните хора.”
“Quid autem de corporis uoluptatibus loquar, quarum appetentia quidem plena est anxietatis, satietas uero paenitentiae?”
“One's virtue is all that one truly has, because it is not imperiled by the vicissitudes of fortune.”
“Nunc fluens facit tempus,nunc stans facit aeternitatum.(The now that passes produces time, the now that remains produces eternity.)”
“So it follows that those who have reason have freedom to will or not to will, although this freedom is not equal in all of them. [...] human souls are more free when they persevere in the contemplation of the mind of God, less free when they descend to the corporeal, and even less free when they are entirely imprisoned in earthly flesh and blood.”
“Wretched men cringe before tyrants who have no power, the victims of their trivial hopes and fears. They do not realise that anger is hopeless, fear is pointless and desire all a delusion. He whose heart is fickle is not his own master, has thrown away his shield, deserted his post, and he forges the links of the chain that holds him.”
“...Whose souls, albeit in a cloudy memory, yet seek back their good, but, like drunk men, know not the road home.”
“As far as possible, join faith to reason.”
“Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.”
“Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.”