“Who fain would sow the fallow field,
And see the growing corn,
Must first remove the useless weeds,
The bramble and the thorn.”
Qui serere ingenuum uolet agrum
liberat arua prius fruticibus,
falce rubos filicemque resecat,
ut noua fruge grauis Ceres eat.
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century
Poem I, lines 1-4; translation by H. R. James
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book III