Seneca · c. 4 BCE – 65 CE
On Benefits 3.34 — Seneca
Translation by Aubrey Stewart (1887)
Seneca, On Benefits 3.34
“But,” says our opponent, “whatever you do, whatever you are able to give to your father, is part of his benefit bestowed upon you.” So it is the benefit of my teacher that I have become proficient in liberal studies; yet we pass on from those who taught them to us, at any rate from those who taught us the alphabet; and although no one can learn anything without them, yet it does not follow that whatsoever success one subsequently obtains, one is still inferior to those teachers. There is a great difference between the beginning of a thing and its final development; the beginning is not equal to the thing at its greatest, merely upon the ground that, without the beginning, it could never have become so great.
Cite this passage
Seneca, On Benefits 3.34, tr. Aubrey Stewart (1887)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-benefits/3.34
Seneca, Dialogues, tr. Aubrey Stewart (1887–1889). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesWe owe our first teachers a great deal, but that does not leave us permanently inferior to them. The start of something is not equal to its full development just because the growth could not have happened without it.
Older wording
- “liberal studies”
- — the education fit for a free citizen, such as grammar and rhetoric
Themes and situations
- Learning and progress
- Gratitude
- Family and love
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