Re: Non vitae sed scholae discimus

Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:

> On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:51:02 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
>
> >I don't know if my previous mail on this topic went thru, but I went home
> and
> >checked Tore Jansson's _Latin_, and it agrees with what I thought I
> recalled;
> >what Seneca actually wrote was _Non vitae sed scholae discimus_ "Not for
> life
> >but for school do we learn". It's noted its often quoted in opposite form,
> >and yet attributed to Seneca (which strikes me as highly discourteous, no
> >matter how dead the old man might be).
>
> It's not that bad since he meant it should be the other way round. By
> inversing Seneca's word, we get it the way he'd have wanted it. It's not a
> proper quote, but an allusion, and a quite litteral one.
Well, I don't pretend to know what Seneca would have felt about it. I do know
I'd hate it if I somehow knew that future generations would invert a saying of
mine and yet present it as quote with my name on it, quite regardless whether
the inversion expressed what I wished to be the case.

                                                         Andreas

Reply