On the usefulness of basic principles
95:9
Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Book Description: The final volume of Seneca's moral letters. Common Stoic themes emerge again and again: the unreliability of fortune, the ability to form Stoic resolve, and the importance of virtue.
9.
I mean something like this: A scholar will blush for shame, not if he makes a grammatical blunder intentionally, but if he makes it unintentionally; if a physician does not recognize that his patient is failing, he is a much poorer practitioner than if he recognizes the fact and conceals his knowledge.
But in this art of living a voluntary mistake is the more shameful.
Furthermore, many arts, aye and the most liberal of them all, have their special doctrines, and not mere precepts of advice—the medical profession, for example.
There are the different schools of Hippocrates, of Asclepiades, of Themison.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the usefulness of basic principles
Location: Chapter 95, Section 9
Content:
9.
I mean something like this: A scholar will blush for shame, not if he makes a grammatical blunder intentionally, but if he makes it unintentionally; if a physician does not recognize that his patient is failing, he is a much poorer practitioner than if he recognizes the fact and conceals his knowledge.
But in this art of living a voluntary mistake is the more shameful.
Furthermore, many arts, aye and the most liberal of them all, have their special doctrines, and not mere precepts of advice—the medical profession, for example.
There are the different schools of Hippocrates, of Asclepiades, of Themison.