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By first recognizing false goods, you begin to escape the burden of their influence; then afterwards true goods may gain possession of your spirit.

— Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

Tu quoque falsa tuens bona prius
incipe colla iugo retrahere:
Vera dehinc animum subierint.

Original text (Latin)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Poem I, lines 11-13; translation by Richard H. Green

More quotes by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.

If you would give every man as he deserves, then love the good and pity those who are evil.

I see how happiness and misery lie inseparably in the deserts of good and bad men.

Wherefore not without cause has one of your own followers asked, "If God is, whence come evil things? If He is not, whence come good?"

Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.