Boethius Quotes on Mind
Boethius reflected on the mind both as a philosopher and as a theorist of music, and the quotes gathered here draw on both sides of his work. In The Consolation of Philosophy, Lady Philosophy drives the Muses of poetry away from the prisoner's bedside, charging that they stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions, a vivid image of a mind to be healed by reason rather than indulged in sorrow. Boethius describes the cure as a sequence: by first recognizing false goods, the mind begins to escape their hold, so that true goods may gain possession of the spirit. In his treatise on music he argued that rhythms and modes affect and reshape the mind according to their character, tying the mind closely to harmony and to moral formation. These passages present the mind as something to be ordered, healed, and rightly tuned.
Quotes
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Attributed to Boethius:
“Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired.”
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Attributed to Boethius:
“Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.”
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Attributed to Boethius:
“He who knows himself was first his own knower.”
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“When she [ Philosophy ] saw that the Muses of poetry were present by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely, and said she, "Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man? Never do they support those in sorrow by any healing remedies, but rather do ever foster the sorrow by poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions: they free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them thereto." Prose I, lines 7-9; translation by W.V. Cooper”
Quae ubi poeticas Musas uidit nostro assistentes toro fletibusque meis uerba dictantes, commota paulisper ac toruis inflammata luminibus: Quis, inquit, has scenicas meretriculas ad hunc aegrum permisit accedere, quae dolores eius non modo nullis remediis fouerent, uerum dulcibus insuper alerent uenenis? Hae sunt enim quae infructuosis affectuum spinis uberem fructibus rationis segetem necant homin -
“Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content.”
The Consolation of Philosophy, Book II | Prose IV, line 18 -
“By first recognizing false goods, you begin to escape the burden of their influence; then afterwards true goods may gain possession of your spirit.”
The Consolation of Philosophy, Book III | Poem I, lines 11-13; translation by Richard H. Green -
“Music is associated not only with speculation but with morality. When rhythms and modes reach an intellect through the ear, they doubtless affect and reshape that mind according to their particular character.”
De Institutione Musica | Christopher Callahan (October 2000), Music in Medieval Medical Practice: Speculations and Certainties