Seneca, Moral Epistles 76.1-3
“You are threatening to become my enemy if I leave you ignorant of what I am doing every day. Look how straightforward I am with you when I tell you even this. I am listening to a philosopher and I am on my fifth day listening to his lectures at school, starting at two in the afternoon.
“A fine time of life for that!” you say. What’s wrong with it? What’s more foolish than not learning because you haven’t done so in a while? “What, then? Should we act like the groupies and the kids?” Well, things are pretty good for me if this alone besmirches my old age.
This school accepts people from every age. “Should we grow old just to follow the kids?” I will enter the theater as an old man or get taken to the games and refuse any bout fought to the finish without me, but I should be embarrassed at attending a philosopher’s talk? As long as you are ignorant, you have to learn. If we trust the old saying, as long as you live! And nothing fits this situation better: as long as you are alive you must keep learning how to live.”
Inimicitias mihi denuntias, si quicquam ex iis, quae cotidie facio, ignoraveris. Vide, quam simpliciter tecum vivam: hoc quoque tibi committam. Philosophum audio et quidem quintum iam diem habeo, ex quo in scholam eo et ab octava disputantem audio. “Bona,” inquis, “aetate.” Quidni bona? Quid autem stultius est quam, quia diu non didiceris, non discere? “Quid ergo? Idem faciam, quod trossuli et iuvenes?” Bene mecum agitur, si hoc unum senectutem meam dedecet. Omnis aetatis homines haec schola admittit. “In hoc senescamus, ut iuvenes sequamur?” In theatrum senex ibo et in circum deferar et nullum par sine me depugnabit ad philosophum ire erubescam?
Tamdiu discendum est, quamdiu nescias; si proverbio credimus, quamdiu vivas. Nec ulli hoc rei magis convenit quam huic: tamdiu discendum est, quemadmodum vivas, quamdiu vivas.
