Key Arguments

• He admits that the Stoic tradition contains a plentiful supply of quotable sayings: "There is a mass of such things, an enormous mass of them, lying all over the place, needing only to be picked up as distinct from gathered up. They come, not in dribs and drabs, but in a closely interconnected and continuous stream."
• He acknowledges their particular usefulness for the uninitiated and novices, because compact, verse‑like units lodge in the memory: "I have no doubt, too, they may be very helpful to the uninitiated and those who are still novices, for individual aphorisms in a small compass, rounded off in units rather like lines of verse, become fixed more readily in the mind."
• He draws an explicit pedagogical comparison with children learning proverbs by heart: "It is for this reason that we give children proverbs and what the Greeks call to learn by heart, a child’s mind being able to take these in at a stage when anything more would be beyond its capacity."
• He condemns adults who still behave this way: "But in the case of a grown man who has made incontestable progress it is disgraceful to go hunting after gems of wisdom, and prop himself up with a minute number of the best-known sayings, and be dependent on his memory as well; it is time he was standing on his own feet."
• He says such a person should now be originating rather than memorizing wise sayings: "He should be delivering himself of such sayings, not memorizing them."

Source Quotes

Still, if you press me I won’t treat you so meanly – openhanded generosity it shall be. There is a mass of such things, an enormous mass of them, lying all over the place, needing only to be picked up as distinct from gathered up. They come, not in dribs and drabs, but in a closely interconnected and continuous stream. I have no doubt, too, they may be very helpful to the uninitiated and those who are still novices, for individual aphorisms in a small compass, rounded off in units rather like lines of verse, become fixed more readily in the mind.

They come, not in dribs and drabs, but in a closely interconnected and continuous stream. I have no doubt, too, they may be very helpful to the uninitiated and those who are still novices, for individual aphorisms in a small compass, rounded off in units rather like lines of verse, become fixed more readily in the mind. It is for this reason that we give children proverbs and what the Greeks call to learn by heart, a child’s mind being able to take these in at a stage when anything more would be beyond its capacity.

I have no doubt, too, they may be very helpful to the uninitiated and those who are still novices, for individual aphorisms in a small compass, rounded off in units rather like lines of verse, become fixed more readily in the mind. It is for this reason that we give children proverbs and what the Greeks call to learn by heart, a child’s mind being able to take these in at a stage when anything more would be beyond its capacity. But in the case of a grown man who has made incontestable progress it is disgraceful to go hunting after gems of wisdom, and prop himself up with a minute number of the best-known sayings, and be dependent on his memory as well; it is time he was standing on his own feet.

It is for this reason that we give children proverbs and what the Greeks call to learn by heart, a child’s mind being able to take these in at a stage when anything more would be beyond its capacity. But in the case of a grown man who has made incontestable progress it is disgraceful to go hunting after gems of wisdom, and prop himself up with a minute number of the best-known sayings, and be dependent on his memory as well; it is time he was standing on his own feet. He should be delivering himself of such sayings, not memorizing them.

But in the case of a grown man who has made incontestable progress it is disgraceful to go hunting after gems of wisdom, and prop himself up with a minute number of the best-known sayings, and be dependent on his memory as well; it is time he was standing on his own feet. He should be delivering himself of such sayings, not memorizing them. It is disgraceful that a man who is old or in sight of old age should have a wisdom deriving solely from his notebook.

Key Concepts

• There is a mass of such things, an enormous mass of them, lying all over the place, needing only to be picked up as distinct from gathered up. They come, not in dribs and drabs, but in a closely interconnected and continuous stream.
• I have no doubt, too, they may be very helpful to the uninitiated and those who are still novices, for individual aphorisms in a small compass, rounded off in units rather like lines of verse, become fixed more readily in the mind.
• It is for this reason that we give children proverbs and what the Greeks call to learn by heart, a child’s mind being able to take these in at a stage when anything more would be beyond its capacity.
• But in the case of a grown man who has made incontestable progress it is disgraceful to go hunting after gems of wisdom, and prop himself up with a minute number of the best-known sayings, and be dependent on his memory as well; it is time he was standing on his own feet.
• He should be delivering himself of such sayings, not memorizing them.

Context

Continuing in Letter XXXIII, Seneca distinguishes between the legitimate early‑stage use of aphorisms for memory training and the inappropriate dependence of advanced students on collecting quotable lines instead of cultivating their own judgement and expression.