Sundays with Seneca
Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from the writings and Stoic philosophy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
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On Learning Wisdom in Old Age
In a letter known today as On Learning Wisdom in Old Age, Seneca wrote,
What is more foolish than refusing to learn simply because one has not been learning for a long time?
“What do you mean? Must I follow the fashion set by the fops and youngsters?” But I am pretty well off if this is the only thing that discredits my declining years. Men of all ages are admitted to this classroom. You retort: “Do we grow old merely in order to tag after the youngsters?” But if I, an old man, go to the theatre, and am carried to the races, and allow no duel in the arena to be fought to a finish without my presence, shall I blush to attend a philosopher’s lecture?
You should keep learning as long as you are ignorant—even to the end of your life, if there is anything in the proverb. And the proverb suits the present case as well as any: “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” For all that, there is also something which I can teach in that school. You ask, what I can teach? That even an old man should keep learning.
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