⟨In the same work⟩

But if we are somehow to persuade them ⟨that⟩ no citizen has ever been at enmity with another and that this is not holy, then these, rather, are the kinds of things children should be told from the outset by old men and old women; and as they grow older, the poets must be compelled to compose stories close to these.¹²⁸¹

Hera’s being bound by her son, Hephaestus’s being hurled down by his father when he was about to defend his mother as she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods that Homer has composed must not be admitted into the city, whether composed with underlying meanings or without them.¹²⁸²

For the young person cannot judge what is an underlying meaning and what is not. But ⟨whatever⟩ beliefs he takes in at that age tend to become hard to wash away and unalterable. For these reasons, perhaps, we should make it our chief concern that the first stories they hear are told as beautifully as possible with a view to virtue. — That does make sense, he said.¹²⁸³

Republic III

After music, young men must be nurtured through physical training. — Of course. — They must indeed be carefully nurtured in this way too, from childhood throughout life. But it is somewhat like this, I think; consider it yourself as well. For it does not seem to me that a body in good condition instills goodness in the soul by its own excellence; rather, the reverse: a good soul by its own excellence provides a body as good as possible.¹²⁸⁴ How does it seem to you? — The same to me, he said. — Then if, after adequately caring for the mind, we were to entrust it with settling the details concerning the body . . . .¹²⁸⁵

In the same work

They would need to do or imitate nothing else but what befits them, right from childhood: brave, temperate, pious, free people, and everything of that kind.¹²⁸⁶ They should neither do what is servile nor become skilled in imitating it, nor anything else shameful, lest imitation lead them to become what they imitate. Or have you not noticed that imitations, if kept up for a long time from youth, settle into character and nature, in body, voice and thought? — Very much so, he said.¹²⁸⁷

Republic VII

Then calculation, geometry and all the education preparatory to dialectic must be set before them while they are children, without making the teaching take the form of compulsory learning. — Why? — Because, I said, a free person should learn no subject under slavish constraint. For bodily exertions, even when performed by force, do not make the body any worse; but no lesson forced upon the soul remains in it. — True, he said.¹²⁸⁸

“Then,” I said, “my good friend, bring children up in their studies through play, instead of by force, so that you may better see what each is naturally suited for.”¹²⁸⁹

Whenever someone who had received none of the general studies wished to study with Xenocrates, he said, “Go away: you have no handles for philosophy. The soul must first have been softened through these studies.”¹²⁹⁰

Isocrates urged his pupils not to talk about matters, but to put ⟨the⟩ matters themselves before their hearers.¹²⁹¹

Asked what free boys ought to learn thoroughly, Agesilaus said, “Things it is shameful not to know in old age.”¹²⁹²

From Serenus

Someone who had begun studying geometry with Euclid, after learning the first theorem, asked him, “What more will I gain from learning these things?” Euclid called the boy and said,¹²⁹³ “Give him three obols, since he must make a profit from what he learns.”¹²⁹⁴

Alexander asked the geometer Menaechmus to teach him geometry concisely. “O king,” he said, “across the country there are ordinary and royal roads, but in geometry there is one road for everyone.”¹²⁹⁵

From Serenus

Heraclitus used to say that much learning does not instill understanding.¹²⁹⁶ Anaxarchus, however, said that much learning greatly benefits, but also greatly harms.¹²⁹⁷

Iamblichus, to Eustathius, On Music

. . . . knowing this ⟨one⟩ thing: that great natures produce great evils when corrupted,¹²⁹⁸ and even the best pursuits are certainly most harmful when they turn toward evil.¹²⁹⁹

A certain geometer called Diogenes uneducated and ignorant. “Forgive me,” he said, “for not having learned what not even Chiron taught Achilles.”¹³⁰⁰

From Aristoxenus’s Pythagorean Sayings

They also used to say that, in all study of the sciences and the arts, voluntary learning is sound and reaches its goal, while involuntary learning proves poor and incomplete.¹³⁰¹

Archytas the Pythagorean, On Moral Education

They say philosophy is a desire to establish or maintain oneself in practical virtue, in pursuit of wisdom for its own sake.¹³⁰² Nature is its beginning, practice its middle, and knowledge its end.¹³⁰³ It is fortunate, then, to be naturally well endowed, and to be reared and guided by right law and habits in accord with nature. One must be trained under parents or guardians, and the teachers must be temperate. But it is good to prescribe the best things for oneself without needing compulsion, and to obey those who guide one toward the best things in action and knowledge. For natural gifts and good upbringing often anticipate instruction, leading toward what is most correct; they lack only reason as a guide, which knowledge instills.¹³⁰⁴