Non vitae, sed scholae, discimus.
- Seneca the Younger, Epistulae Morales 106.12
This was a new use of the dative for me - 'dative of purpose'. Not a tricky concept, but nevertheless one that ambushed me when I came across this sentence.
Translated, this means, 'We do not learn for life, but for the lecture-hall.' This seems like an odd thing for Seneca to say, until we put it in context and realize that he was indicating the reality of the matter, not trying to suggest that it is how the world should be.
Seneca is misquoted all over the internet as 'Non scholae, sed vitae, discimus.' This, of course, has the appealing sentiment of 'We learn for life, not for school.'
1 comment:
He wasn't saying it was how life should be either. He was engaging in an occupatio, putting that rebuttal into the mouth of the guy he was writing to.
I don't think he comes back to it later in print, but obviously the path he's leading the guy down is that philosophy (at any rate, his philosophy) is precisely "learning for life" and not a pedantic schoolboy exercise.
In other words, in a roundabout way, the "misquotation" is precisely the sentiment Seneca held and approved of, despite being the opposite of the "quote".
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