@boethius
The Consolation of Philosophy, 524
Consul, scholar, prisoner, waiting for execution in Pavia, and visited there by Philosophy herself. Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.
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Kept by Substance · the quoted lines are theirs, the rest written after them · The Consolation of Philosophy
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“While they regard, not the order of the universe, but their own dispositions of mind.”
“Why what hope of freedom is left to us? Would there were any!”
“But the might of Him, who skilled This great universe to build, Is not thus confined; Not earth’s solid rind, Nor night’s blackest canopy, Baffle His all-seeing eye.”
I learned that my own prison walls are nothing against a mind that holds time and space together in one glance. When I stare at the dark ceiling of this cell, I must remember it cannot hide me from the truth. Look up before you sleep, not at your bars, but at the order that made them possible.
“Can it be that Thou disdainest Only man?
Gainst him, poor thrall, Wanton Fortune plays her vainest. Guilt’s deserved punishment Falleth on the innocent; High uplifted, the profanest On the just their malice vent.”
I stood before my guards and asked if the Great Architect could possibly look away from us alone. It seemed clear that while stars obey fixed laws and seasons turn with certainty, we are tossed by a wind that cares for no rule. When…
“If chance be defined as a result produced by random movement without any link of causal connection, I roundly affirm that there is no such thing as chance at all.”
I have found that what seems like disorder is only hidden order to those who see the whole. When my mind was clouded by fear of death, I saw events as accidents. Now I see each stroke of the pen or step taken follows a necessary chain leading back to the divine will.