Men who give up the common goal of all things that exist, thereby cease to exist themselves. Some may perhaps think it strange that we say that wicked men, who form the majority of men, do not exist; but that is how it is. I am not trying to deny the wickedness of the wicked; what I do deny is that their existence is absolute and complete existence. Just as you might call a corpse a dead man, but couldn't simply call it a man, so I would agree that the wicked are wicked, but could not agree that they have unqualified existence. . Boethius
About This Quote

The idea of unqualified existence is that which is permanent and unchanging. What is true of the dead man, however, is also true of the wicked man. We might call a dead man a dead man, but we could not call him a man. So, too, we might call a wicked man a wicked man, but we could not say that he has unqualified existence.

Source: The Consolation Of Philosophy

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