Philosopher Quotes on the Mind

“The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”

The universe is flux, life is opinion.

“Confine yourself to the present.”

VII, 29

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

ἐν ὀλιγίστοις κεῖται τὸ εὐδαιμόνως βιῶσαι | VII, 67

“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

VII, 11.

“Law is the perfection of reason implanted in us by nature, which enjoins what should be done, and forbids what we should not do.”

De Legibus(On the Laws)(c. 40s BC)

“Of any man at all it is to err, to persist in error is of none except unthinking; for the later thoughts, as they say, are usually the wiser.”

Philippicae–Philippics(44 BC) | Philippica XII, 5; translation of Walter C.A. Ker

“Diseases of the mind are more common and more pernicious than diseases of the body.”

Tusculanae Disputationes–Tusculan Disputations(45 BC) | Book III, Chapter III

“Shortened Version: We think a happy life consists in tranquility of mind.”

De Natura Deorum–On the Nature of the Gods(45 BC) | Book I, section 6

“A grateful mind is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the other virtues.”

As quoted in Great Thoughts from Latin Authors (1884), by Craufurd Tait Ramage, p. 32

“Hell is other people.”

Alors, c'est ça l'enfer. Je n'aurais jamais cru... vous vous rappelez: le soufre, le bûcher, le gril... ah! Quelle plaisanterie. Pas besoin de gril, l'enfer, c'est les autres.

“Imagination is not an empirical or superadded power of consciousness, it is the whole of consciousness as it realizes its freedom .”

L'imagination ( Imagination: A Psychological Critique ) (1936)

“L'âge de raison ( The Age of Reason ) (1945)”

He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.

“L'âge de raison ( The Age of Reason ) (1945)”

He yawned. He had finished the day and he had also finished with his youth. Various well-bred moralities had already discreetly offered him their services: disillusioned epicureanism , smiling tolerance , resignation , common sense stoicism - all the aids whereby a man may savour, minute by minute, like a connoisseur, the failure of a life.

“For Genet, reflective states of mind are the rule. And although they are of an unstable nature in everyone, in him...reflection is always contrary to the reflected feeling.”

Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr(1952) | p. 278

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Plura sunt, Lucili, quae nos terrent quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus.

“To be angry with a man is to hate him; to hate him is to wish him harm; but to wish him well, even if he has done you harm, is the mark of a great mind.”

Seneca, On Anger (De Ira) 2.34.5 (translated by John W. Basore)

“For love of bustle is not industry – it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind.”

Letter III: On true and false friendship | Line 5.

“I do not trust my eyes to tell me what a man is: I have a better and more trustworthy light by which I can distinguish what is true from what is false: let the mind find out what is good for the mind.”

Moral Essays | De Vita Beata (On the Happy Life): cap. 2, line 2

“Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it.”

Letter LXXXI: On benefits | Line 6

“It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.”

1750s | Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750) Note: This quotation and the three that follow directly below are from the so-called Leningrad Notebook, also known as Le Sottisier; it is one of several posthumously publish

“Life is long enough for him who knows how to use it. Working and thinking extend its limits.”

A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness(1902) | p. 219

“Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.”

1760s | Letter to Louise Dorothea of Meiningen , duchess of Saxe-Gotha Madame (30 January 1762)

“Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.”

1760s | Dialogue 14 , Le Chapon et la Poularde (1766); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations , 10th ed. (1919)

Attributed to Voltaire:

“Common sense is not so common.”

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

O light ! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer .

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”

Notebooks 1935-1942

“Art, at least, teaches us that man cannot be explained by history alone and that he also finds a reason for his existence in the order of nature.”

The Rebel(1951) | Part 4: Rebellion and Art

“I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.”

Resistance, Rebellion, and Death(1960) | "Pessimism and Tyranny"

“One does not decide the truth of a thought according to whether it is right-wing or left-wing.”

Letter to Jean-Paul Sartre , 30 June 1952. As quoted in Paris after the Liberation: 1944-1949 by Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper .

“A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”

A History of Western Philosophy, 1945

“Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.”

Aphorism (commonly attributed)

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinise it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it.”

Ch. VI: International relations, p. 97

“I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.”

Greek Exercises (1888); at the age of fifteen, Russell used to write down his reflections in this book, for fear that his people should find out what he was thinking.

“Greek Exercises (1888); at the age of fifteen, Russell used to write down his reflections in this book, for fear that his people should find out what he was thinking.”

I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.

“Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.”

學而不思則罔，思而不學則殆。

“When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.”

Analects | James Legge , translation (1893)

“When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.”

Analects | Dim Cheuk Lau translation (1979)

“When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him. When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.”

Analects | As quoted in Liberating Faith : Religious Voices for Justice, Peace, and Ecological Wisdom (2003) by Roger S. Gottlieb, p. 24

“There is the love of knowing without the love of learning; the beclouding here leads to dissipation of mind.”

Analects

“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.”

The Method of Nature (1841), p. 25

“Character is higher than intellect...A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.”

The American Scholar(1837) | par. 27

“Life is too short to waste The critic bite or cynic bark, Quarrel, or reprimand; 'Twill soon be dark; Up! mind thine own aim, and God speed the mark!”

Poems(1847) | To J. W. , st. 4

“I think no virtue goes with size; The reason of all cowardice Is, that men are overgrown, And, to be valiant, must come down To the titmouse dimension.”

May-Day and Other Pieces(1867) | The Titmouse , st. 5

“If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again.”

May-Day and Other Pieces(1867) | Brahma , st. 1 Composed in July 1856 this poem is derived from a major passage of the Bhagavad Gita , one of the most popular of Hindu scriptures, and portions of it were likely a paraphrase of an exi

“People must be governed in a manner agreeable to their temper and disposition; and men of free character and spirit must be ruled with, at least, some condescension to this spirit and this character.”

1760s | Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), page 76.

“It is reconciled in policy; and politics ought to be adjusted, not to human reasonings, but to human nature; of which the reason is but a part; and by no means the greatest part.”

1760s | Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), page 78

“He was one of those who wished for the abolition of the Slave Trade . He thought it ought to be abolished on principles of humanity and justice.”

1780s | Speech in the House of Commons (9 May 1788), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXVII (1816), column 502

“Never wholly separate in your Mind the merits of any Political Question from the Men who are concerned in it.”

1780s | Letter to Charles-Jean-François Depont (November 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 47

“The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is Curiosity.”

A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful(1757) | Part I Section I

“The thing I fear most is fear.”

C'est ce de quoi j'ai le plus de peur que la peur.

“A strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.”

Ch. 9. Of Liars (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877)

“It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.”

Book I | Ch. 9. Of Liars (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt, 1842)

“The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.”

Book II | Ch. 12 (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877)

“Non pudeat dicere, quod non pudet sentire : "Let no man be ashamed to speak what he is not ashamed to think."”

Book III | Book III, Ch. 4 [2]

“He whose intellect overcomes his desire is higher than the angels; he whose desire overcomes his intellect is less than an animal.”

Kabir Helminski (ed.) The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations (2000)

“Seek truth from thought, not in mouldy books. Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pool.”

Pebbles, Pearls and Gems of the Orient(1882) | "Knowledge and Wisdom", no. 121

“Our celestial spirit is free to eternity, Although for a short time we are imprisoned in forms of flesh.”

A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 31, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz

“Jesus, son of Mary, went to heaven and his ass remained below, I remain on the earth but my spirit has flown to the sky.”

A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 135, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (Nicholson)

“Then think not lowly of thy heart, though lowly, For holy is it and there dwells the holy, God’s presence-chamber is the human breast, Ah! happy spirit with such Inmate blest.”

A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 176, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (Falconer)

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world.”

What Life Means to Einstein, 1929 interview

“Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we know it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking.”

1940s | "Only Then Shall We Find Courage", New York Times Magazine (23 June 1946).

“Who would have thought around 1900 that in fifty years time we would know so much more and understand so much less.”

Albert Einstein: A guide for the perplexed(1979) | From Albert Einstein and the Cosmic World Order , by C. Lanczos (Wiley, New York, 1956)

“I want to know how God created this world. I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.”

Einstein and Religion(1999) | As quoted in "A Talk with Einstein" in The Listener 54 (1955) p. 123

“[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. ...The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.”

1920s | In response to not knowing the speed of sound as included in the Edison Test: New York Times (18 May 1921); Einstein: His Life and Times (1947) Philipp Frank, p. 185; Einstein, A Life (1996) by Denis

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”

Variant translations: | The limits of my language stand for the limits of my world. | The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for. | Original German: Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.

“If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.”

Pt II, p. 223 of the 1968 English edition

“Don't think, but look!”

§ 66

“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.”

Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache.

“It seems to me as good as certain that we cannot get the upper hand against England . The English — the best race in the world — cannot lose! We, however, can lose and shall lose, if not this year then next year. The thought that our race is going to be beaten depresses me terribly, because I am completely German .”

Writing about the eventual outcome of World War I, in which he was a volunteer in the Austro-Hungarian army (25 October 1914), as quoted in The First World War (2004) by Martin Gilbert , p. 104

“You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.”

Lectures from Colombo to Almora

“All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.”

Raja Yoga

“As body, mind, or soul, you are a dream; you really are Being, Consciousness, Bliss (satchidananda). You are the God of this universe.”

Pearls of Wisdom

“Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.”

Pearls of Wisdom

“Go on saying, “I am free.” Never mind if the next moment delusion comes and says, “I am bound.” Dehypnotize the whole thing.”

Pearls of Wisdom

“Annexing of the land in Crimea, I think, was a criminal act. But it has a history.”

2016 | Noam Chomsky, Al Jazeera ‘UpFront’ interview with host Mehdi Hasan on ISIL, Turkey and Ukraine, (Jan 23, 2016)

“The deep structure that expresses the meaning is common to all languages, so it is claimed, being a simple reflection of the forms of thought.”

Cartesian Linguistics(1966) | "Deep and surface structure"

“The central doctrine of Cartesian linguistics is that the general features of grammatical structure are common to all languages and reflect certain fundamental properties of the mind.”

Cartesian Linguistics(1966) | "Acquisition and use of language"

“I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled.”

2001 | Interview by Svetlana Vukovic & Svetlana Lukic on Radio B92, Belgrade , Serbia, September 19, 2001 [52] .

“I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.”

2002 | Debate with Bill Bennett on CNN , May 30, 2002 [65]

“Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus much: The end of man is an Action, and not a Thought , though it were the noblest.”

Sartor Resartus(1833–1834) | Bk. II, ch. 5 The words Carlyle put in italics are a quotation from Book 1 of Aristotle 's Nicomachean Ethics .

“The eye of the intellect "sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing."”

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays(1827–1855) | Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs.

“Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the Devil; for which reason I have, long since, as good as renounced it.”

Sartor Resartus(1833–1834) | Bk. II, ch. 4.

“These are the two vices that beset Government Offices; both of them originating in insufficient Intellect,—that sad insufficiency from which, directly or indirectly, all evil whatsoever springs!”

Downing Street (April 1, 1850)

Attributed to Thomas Carlyle:

“Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves.”

“Behavior is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.”

Maxim 39, trans. Stopp | Variant translation: A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

“What dazzles, for the Moment spends its spirit: What's genuine, shall Posterity inherit.”

Faust, Part 1(1808) | Prelude on the Stage

“There is no outward mark of politeness that does not have a profound moral reason. The right education would be that which taught the outward mark and the moral reason together.”

Elective Affinities(1809) | Bk. II, Ch. 5, R. J. Hollingdale , trans. (1971), p. 195

“What wise or stupid thing can man conceive That was not thought of in ages long ago?”

Faust, Part 2(1832) | Act II, The Gothic Chamber

“There's nothing clever that hasn't been thought of before — you've just got to try to think it all over again.”

Maxims and Reflections(1833) | Maxim 441, trans. Stopp Variant translation: All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

“Christ ought to be preached with this goal in mind — that we might be moved to faith in him so that he is not just a distant historical figure but actually Christ for you and me.”

The Freedom of a Christian(1520) | p. 69

“A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.”

Table Talk(1569) | 352

“We must calm the mind of the common man, and tell him to abstain from the words and even the passions which lead to insurrection.”

A Sincere Admonition to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion(1522) | p. 62

“so it is with human reason, which strives not against faith, when enlightened, but rather furthers and advances it.”

Table Talk(1569) | On Justification CCXCIV

“God has formed the soul and body of the Virgin Mary full of the Holy Spirit, so that she is without all sins, for she has conceived and borne the Lord Jesus.”

D. Martin Luthers Werke , Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 61 vols., (Weimar: Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nochfolger, 1883-1983), 52:39 [hereinafter: WA] 1544

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”

The Life of the Mind (1978), "Thinking

“No one has the right to obey . Paradoxical aphorism asserting the responsibility of everyone to engage in critical thinking in response to unjustly oppressive commands or demands against rationality or humanity , implying automatic obedience to tyranny as a betrayal of both, and referencing Immanuel Kant 's philosophical perspectives, in a radio interview with Joachim Fest (9 November 1964); also often rendered as " Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen.”

Kein Mensch hat das Recht zu gehorchen.

“It is, in fact, far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.”

The Human Condition(1958) | The Human Condition (1958)

“The cultural treasures of the past, believed to be dead, are being made to speak, in the course of which it turns out that they propose things altogether different than what had been thought.”

" Martin Heidegger at Eighty," in Heidegger and Modern Philosophy: Critical Essays (1978) by Michael Murray, p. 294

Attributed to Hannah Arendt:

“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.”

“The greatest reward of righteousness is peace of mind . Attributed to Epicurus by Clement of Alexandria in Stromata”

Δικαιοσύνης καρπὸς μέγιστος ἀταραξία .

“Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole life . (16).”

Sovereign Maxims

“This happy state can only be obtained by a prudent care of the body, and a steady government of the mind. The diseases of the body are to be prevented by temperance, or cured by medicine, or rendered tolerable by patience.”

Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers(Half-Hours with the Freethinkers)

“Gentleness, as opposed to an irascible temper, greatly contributes to the tranquility and happiness of life, by preserving the mind from perturbation, and arming it against the assaults of calumny and malice.”

Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers(Half-Hours with the Freethinkers)

Attributed to Epicurus:

“Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.”

“Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state. Her sphere of action is not large, and if she is not taught to look into her own heart, how trivial are her occupations and pursuits! What little arts engross and narrow her mind!”

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), "Matrimony", p. 100

“Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness (1788; 1791)”

Good habits, imperceptibly fixed, are far preferable to the precepts of reason ; but, as this task requires more judgment than generally falls to the lot of parents, substitutes must be sought for, and medicines given, when regimen would have answered the purpose much better. I believe those who examine their own minds, will readily agree with me, that reason, with difficulty, conquers settled hab

“I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution! However, if I must suffer, I will endeavour to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind — my wayward heart creates its own misery — Why I am made thus I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child — long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon as I get it.”

Undated letter to Joseph Johnson (October? 1792), published in The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft (2004), edited by Janet Todd , p. 206.

“Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Ch. 3

“How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?”

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Ch. 3

“The Mind (begun in September 1723; not completed).”

There is, therefore, no difficulty in answering such questions as these. What cause was there why the Universe was placed in such a part of Space? and, Why was the Universe created at such a Time? for, if there be no Space beyond the Universe, it was impossible that it should be created in another place; and if there was no Time before, it was impossible it should be created at another time.

“Every Christian that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven.”

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895) | p. 304.

“A greater absurdity cannot be thought of than a morose, hard-hearted, covetous, proud, malicious Christian.”

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895) | p. 106.

“If you seek in the spirit of selfishness, to grasp all as your own, you shall lose all, and be driven out of the world, at last, naked and forlorn, to everlasting poverty and contempt.”

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895) | p. 538.

Attributed to Jonathan Edwards:

“The world exists only as it is known by mind.”

“He who exerts his mind to the utmost knows his nature.”

7A:1, as translated by Wing-tsit Chan in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963), p. 62

“Compare: Oh, Soul, remember howe’er small the scope Of thought or action that around thee lies, It is the finished task alone can ope The gates of paradise. — Anon.”

Pebbles, Pearls and Gems of the Orient(1882)

“The way of learning is none other than finding the lost mind .”

The Mencius | 6A:11, as translated by Wing-tsit Chan in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963), p. 58

“The great end of learning is nothing else but to seek for the lost mind.”

Pebbles, Pearls and Gems of the Orient(1882) | "Uses and Sanctions", no. 32

“How lamentable is it to neglect the path and not pursue it, to lose the mind and not know to seek it again! When men’s fowls and dogs are lost, they know to seek for them again, but they lose their mind and do not know to seek for it.”

Nitobe Inazō , Bushido: The Soul of Japan , 13th ed. (1908), p. 21

“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

Attributed to Boethius:

“Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired.”