Cassiodorus Quotes on Knowledge
Cassiodorus (c.485–c.585) — the late Roman senator and Ostrogothic minister whose retirement to the monastery of Vivarium organized the early Christian tradition of monastic preservation of classical learning — gave the late ancient Latin tradition its most influential program for the integration of classical and Christian knowledge in the Institutes (Institutiones, c.560). The central commitment, articulated against the rising threat to literate culture in the Italian sixth century, is that the seven liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy supply the indispensable preparatory disciplines for the higher study of sacred Scripture, and that the systematic monastic copying of both classical and Christian texts is therefore a religiously meaningful work. The framework, transmitted through the Vivarium scriptorium tradition and the broader Benedictine reception of Cassiodorus’s program, shaped early medieval Latin learning and supplied the institutional model for the later monastic preservation of the classical heritage.
Quotes
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Attributed to Cassiodorus:
“Every age, however dark, has need of letters.”
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Attributed to Cassiodorus:
“He who copies a sacred book labours with hands and tongue alike.”
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Attributed to Cassiodorus:
“Memory is the storehouse of all the soul has gathered.”
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Attributed to Cassiodorus:
“What we owe to faithful copyists, no praise can match.”
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Attributed to Cassiodorus:
“Learning consoles the soul amid the disasters of the age.”
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“Haec enim quae appellatur arithmetica inter ambigua mundi certissima ratione consistit, quam cum caelestibus aequaliter novimus: evidens ordo, pulchra dispositio, cognitio simplex, immobilis scientia, quae et superna continet et terrena custodit. quid est enim quod aut mensuram non habeat aut pondus excedat? omnia complectitur, cuncta moderatur et universa hinc pulchritudinem capiunt, quia sub modo ipsius esse noscuntur.”
For, among the world's incertitudes, this thing called arithmetic is established by a sure reasoning that we comprehend as we do the heavenly bodies. It is an intelligible pattern, a beautiful system, that both binds the heavens and preserves the earth. For is there anything that lacks measure, or transcends weight? It includes all, it rules all, and all things have their beauty because they are p -
“Bk. 1, no. 10; p. 12.”
Haec enim quae appellatur arithmetica inter ambigua mundi certissima ratione consistit, quam cum caelestibus aequaliter novimus: evidens ordo, pulchra dispositio, cognitio simplex, immobilis scientia, quae et superna continet et terrena custodit. quid est enim quod aut mensuram non habeat aut pondus excedat? omnia complectitur, cuncta moderatur et universa hinc pulchritudinem capiunt, quia sub mod -
“Mores autem graves in spectaculis quis requirat? ad circum nesciunt convenire Catones. quicquid illic a gaudenti populo dicitur, iniuria non putatur. locus est qui defendit excessum. quorum garrulitas si patienter accipitur, ipsos quoque principes ornare monstratur.”
But who looks for serious conduct at the public shows? A Cato never goes to the circus . Anything said there by the people as they celebrate should be deemed no injury. It is a place that protects excesses. Patient acceptance of their chatter is a proven glory of princes themselves. | Bk. 1, no. 27; p. 19. -
“But who looks for serious conduct at the public shows? A Cato never goes to the circus . Anything said there by the people as they celebrate should be deemed no injury. It is a place that protects excesses. Patient acceptance of their chatter is a proven glory of princes themselves.”
Mores autem graves in spectaculis quis requirat? ad circum nesciunt convenire Catones. quicquid illic a gaudenti populo dicitur, iniuria non putatur. locus est qui defendit excessum. quorum garrulitas si patienter accipitur, ipsos quoque principes ornare monstratur. -
“Bk. 1, no. 27; p. 19.”
Mores autem graves in spectaculis quis requirat? ad circum nesciunt convenire Catones. quicquid illic a gaudenti populo dicitur, iniuria non putatur. locus est qui defendit excessum. quorum garrulitas si patienter accipitur, ipsos quoque principes ornare monstratur. -
“Quid enim illa praestantius, quae caeli machinam sonora dulcedine modulatur et naturae convenientiam ubique dispersam virtutis suae gratia comprehendit?”
For what is more glorious than music, which modulates the heavenly system with its sonorous sweetness, and binds together with its virtue the concord of nature which is scattered everywhere? | Bk. 2, no. 40; p. 38. -
“Bk. 2, no. 40; p. 38.”
Quid enim illa praestantius, quae caeli machinam sonora dulcedine modulatur et naturae convenientiam ubique dispersam virtutis suae gratia comprehendit? -
“Paucos enim ratio capit, raros probabilis oblectat intentio: ad illud potius turba ducitur, quod ad remissionem curarum constat inventum. nam quicquid aestimat voluptuosum, hoe et ad beatitudinem temporum iudicat applicandum. quapropter largiamur expensas, non semper ex iudicio demus. expedit interdum desipere, ut populi possimus desiderata gaudia continere.”
Wikiquote -
“For the school of grammar has primacy: it is the fairest foundation of learning, the glorious mother of eloquence.”
Variae