Everywhere means nowhere.
Seneca Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 2, On Discursiveness in Reading (65 CE) Translated by Richard Mott Gummere
Source checked by an editor
When and why it was written
- When
- From Seneca's second letter to Lucilius, around 64 CE.
- Why
- Seneca is warning against reading many authors briefly instead of a few deeply.
What it means
Seneca compares scattered reading to constant travel: many acquaintances, no friends. Attention spread everywhere takes root nowhere.
The same is true of a mind that never stays with one thing long enough to know it.
Our reading of the passage cited above, not a quotation from a commentary.
Read the source
Moral Letters to Lucilius, 65 CE
Your turn
What does this bring up for you?
Saved to this device only. Nothing is sent to a server.
Continue transfers only this reflection. Review your account before saving. Your original browser copy stays here.
Read next
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
On the Shortness of Life, §1 (49 CE)
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Letters from a Stoic, Letter XIII, 'On Groundless Fears' (65 CE)
Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
Letters from a Stoic, Letter CI (65 CE)