I'm doing this bit of excerpting because this is not a thinker, or a book, that you're likely to come upon, and you may find some of the insights interesting. Email me any reactions you have, and any thoughts they spark in you as you read them.
Numbers are page references.
I hope you enjoy them. Then, above all, Philosophy removes misery from mortals, and bestows happiness upon them. For she discriminates good from evil and shows us how to avoid evil so that it does not hurt us, or how to bear it with strength so that it hurt us less. Furthermore, she shows us how to find goodness more easily, and how to use rightly either the gifts that have been bestowed on us by nature or fortune or acquired through work, so that they may be more profitable. So that you can speak what is good, listen to what is good, and so that you will hear well of yourself for your part speak well of others.