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Aristotle
A Greek philosopher who lived in the 5th century B.C.E. and is best known for formulating a series of paradoxes. The most famous is the classic puzzle about how anything can reach its destination if it has to get to the halfway point first, and so on. Boethius cites Zeno as an important part of his early education, and he specifically cites the circumstances around Zeno’s death—Zeno relentlessly mocked the men who tortured him to death, while they were doing it—as proof that truth and wisdom should not bend to power and tyranny.
Zeno Quotes in The Consolation of Philosophy
The The Consolation of Philosophy quotes below are all either spoken by Zeno or refer to Zeno. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book II, Part VI
Quotes
You creatures of earth, don’t you stop to consider the people over whom you think you exercise authority? You would laugh if you saw a community of mice and one mouse arrogating to himself power and jurisdiction over the others. Again, think of the human body: could you discover anything more feeble than man, when often even a tiny fly can kill him either by its bite or by creeping into some inward part of him? The only way one man can exercise power over another is over his body and what is inferior to it, his possessions. You cannot impose anything on a free mind, and you cannot move from its state of inner tranquillity a mind at peace with itself and firmly founded on reason.
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Zeno Quotes in The Consolation of Philosophy
The The Consolation of Philosophy quotes below are all either spoken by Zeno or refer to Zeno. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book II, Part VI
Quotes
You creatures of earth, don’t you stop to consider the people over whom you think you exercise authority? You would laugh if you saw a community of mice and one mouse arrogating to himself power and jurisdiction over the others. Again, think of the human body: could you discover anything more feeble than man, when often even a tiny fly can kill him either by its bite or by creeping into some inward part of him? The only way one man can exercise power over another is over his body and what is inferior to it, his possessions. You cannot impose anything on a free mind, and you cannot move from its state of inner tranquillity a mind at peace with itself and firmly founded on reason.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
