Key Arguments

• He condemns the professionalization of philosophy divorced from life: 'No one to my mind lets humanity down quite so much as those who study philosophy as if it were a sort of commercial skill and then proceed to live in a quite different manner from the way they tell other people to live.'
• He characterizes such people as 'walking advertisements' against philosophy: 'People prone to every fault they denounce are walking advertisements of the uselessness of their training.'
• He claims such a man cannot help him as an instructor, comparing him to a steersman incapacitated in a storm: 'That kind of man can be of no more help to me as an instructor than a steersman who is seasick in a storm – a man who should be hanging on to the tiller when the waves are snatching it from his grasp, wrestling with the sea itself, rescuing his sails from the winds. What good to me is a vomiting and stupefied helmsman?'
• He intensifies the contrast by noting that the 'storm of life' is even more serious than any sea-storm: 'And you may well think the storm of life is a great deal more serious than any which ever tosses a boat. What is needed is a steering hand, not talking.'
• Finally, he indicates what would show that a philosopher’s words are truly his: 'Let me indicate here how men can prove that their words are their own: let them put their preaching into practice.'

Source Quotes

We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching, and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application – not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech – and learn them so well that words become works. No one to my mind lets humanity down quite so much as those who study philosophy as if it were a sort of commercial skill and then proceed to live in a quite different manner from the way they tell other people to live. People prone to every fault they denounce are walking advertisements of the uselessness of their training.

No one to my mind lets humanity down quite so much as those who study philosophy as if it were a sort of commercial skill and then proceed to live in a quite different manner from the way they tell other people to live. People prone to every fault they denounce are walking advertisements of the uselessness of their training. That kind of man can be of no more help to me as an instructor than a steersman who is seasick in a storm – a man who should be hanging on to the tiller when the waves are snatching it from his grasp, wrestling with the sea itself, rescuing his sails from the winds.

People prone to every fault they denounce are walking advertisements of the uselessness of their training. That kind of man can be of no more help to me as an instructor than a steersman who is seasick in a storm – a man who should be hanging on to the tiller when the waves are snatching it from his grasp, wrestling with the sea itself, rescuing his sails from the winds. What good to me is a vomiting and stupefied helmsman? And you may well think the storm of life is a great deal more serious than any which ever tosses a boat.

What good to me is a vomiting and stupefied helmsman? And you may well think the storm of life is a great deal more serious than any which ever tosses a boat. What is needed is a steering hand, not talking. And apart from this, everything which this kind of man says, everything he tosses out to a thronging audience, belongs to someone else.

The words were said by Plato, said by Zeno, said by Chrysippus and Posidonius and a whole host more of Stoics like them. Let me indicate here how men can prove that their words are their own: let them put their preaching into practice. Now that I’ve given you the message I wanted to convey to you, I’ll go on from here to satisfy that wish of yours.

Key Concepts

• No one to my mind lets humanity down quite so much as those who study philosophy as if it were a sort of commercial skill and then proceed to live in a quite different manner from the way they tell other people to live.
• People prone to every fault they denounce are walking advertisements of the uselessness of their training.
• That kind of man can be of no more help to me as an instructor than a steersman who is seasick in a storm – a man who should be hanging on to the tiller when the waves are snatching it from his grasp, wrestling with the sea itself, rescuing his sails from the winds. What good to me is a vomiting and stupefied helmsman?
• And you may well think the storm of life is a great deal more serious than any which ever tosses a boat. What is needed is a steering hand, not talking.
• Let me indicate here how men can prove that their words are their own: let them put their preaching into practice.

Context

Near the end of Letter CVIII, Seneca moves from criticizing verbalist philosophy to denouncing hypocritical philosophers whose lives contradict their doctrines, using the vivid image of a seasick helmsman during a storm.