Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior.
Interpretation
Music profoundly influences human behavior, shaping it positively or negatively.
Boethius emphasizes the intrinsic role of music in human life, suggesting that it is not just an art form but a significant factor that can uplift or undermine our actions and character. This dual potential of music reflects its power to inspire noble behavior while also having the capacity to lead to degradation, highlighting the importance of the music we choose to engage with.
In practice
During a speech about the importance of arts education in schools, this quote can emphasize the impact of music on behavior.
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.
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.
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.
Everyone who gave me food, who took away my hunger, inspired me to compose. They told me their stories, and I had no other way to console them than with a piece of music, and that is how I learned. I did not resolve their problems with my songs, but I created a moment of release.
Improvising musicians are musical travelers, voyagers. There is a freedom to wander the musical landscape.
The same God who created Rembrandt created you, and you are as precious in God’s sight as Rembrandt or anyone else.
I didn’t want a completely passive viewer. Art means too much to me. To be able to articulate something visually is really an important thing. I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful
Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church above a bleached village.
I write by hand, making many, many corrections. I would say I cross out more than I write. I have to hunt for words when I speak, and I have the same difficulty when writing.
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