Miscellanies 1.10.48

For me, I think, it is fitting to live according to reason and to understand what is meant, never striving for eloquence but content only to hint at what is understood. By what word what I wish to present is shown matters nothing to me. For I know well that to be saved and to help those eager to be saved is best, not to compose little phrases like ornaments. “And if you guard against being serious about names,” says the Pythagorean in Plato's Statesman, “you will appear richer in wisdom in old age.” And in the Theaetetus you might find again: “Ease with names and words and not examining them with exactness is mostly not ignoble; rather the opposite is unworthy of a free man, though sometimes it is necessary.” Scripture expressed this as briefly as possible, saying, “Do not be abundant in words.” For style is like clothing on the body, while the substance is flesh and sinews. One must not, then, care for the clothing before the health of the body. For the one who has undertaken the true life must practice not only a frugal diet but also a speech that is unadorned and not elaborate, if indeed we reject luxury as treacherous and prodigal, as the ancient Spartans rejected perfume and purple, rightly considering and calling the garments treacherous and the ointments treacherous; since neither is that preparation of food good which has more seasonings than nourishment, nor is that use of speech elegant which can delight the hearers more than benefit them. Pythagoras advises us to consider the Muses sweeter than the Sirens, teaching us to practice wisdom not with pleasure, and exposing the other kind of attraction as deceitful. One man is enough who sailed past the Sirens, and another one who answered the Sphinx; and, if you like, not even one.