He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate, and set proud death beneath his feet, can look fortune in the face, unbending both to good and bad; his countenance unconquered.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of accepting life's circumstances and facing both fortune and misfortune with a strong demeanor.
Boethius' quote reflects the Stoic philosophy of accepting fate with tranquility. It suggests that a person who is at peace with their life circumstances, who can confront both good and bad fortune without being swayed emotionally, possesses an unconquerable spirit. This resilience allows one to maintain dignity and strength in the face of life's challenges.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
And no renown can render you well-known:_x000D_ For if you think that fame can lengthen life _x000D_ By mortal famousness immortalized,_x000D_ The day will come that takes your fame as well,_x000D_ And there a second death for you awaits.
Man is so constituted that he then only excels other things when he knows himself.
Every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home.
For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort of misery is to have been happy.
I who once wrote songs with keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.
Contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens, and then at last cease to admire worthless things.
People ask me why it is that when I portray the 'angry young man' on screen, I really look angry. They reason that it is due to some suppression in my childhood. But, it's just that I can't help it; it's in my genes.
What I think I learned from working on 'Moonlight' is you see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves.
Power is a disease one has no desire to be cured of.
The day is for honest men, the night for thieves.
Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe; a moment that never was before and never will be again.
That seems to me the greatest American danger we're all in, that we'll bargain away the experience of being alive for the appearance of it.
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