Letters 108.3

This was the advice, I remember, which Attalus gave me in the days when I practically laid siege to his class-room, the first to arrive and the last to leave. Even as he paced up and down, I would challenge him to various discussions; for he not only kept himself accessible to his pupils, but met them half-way. His words were: “The same purpose should possess both master and scholar—an ambition in the one case to promote, and in the other to progress.”

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 108.3, translated by Richard Mott Gummere