''Non scholæ sed vitæ'' is a

Latin phrase This is a list of Wikipedia articles of Latin phrases and their translation into English. To view all phrases on a single, lengthy document, see: List of Latin phrases (full). Lists of pages * List of Latin phrases (A) * List of Latin phrases ( ...

. Its longer form is ''non scholæ sed vitæ discimus'', which means "We do not learn for

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

, but for life". The ''scholae'' and ''vitae'' are first-declension

feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

datives of purpose. The motto is an inversion of the original, which appeared in

Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger ( ; AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca ...

's ''

Moral Letters to Lucilius ' (Latin for "Moral Letters to Lucilius"), also known as the ''Moral Epistles'' and ''Letters from a Stoic'', is a letter collection of 124 letters that Seneca the Younger wrote at the end of his life, during his retirement, after he had worked f ...

'' around AD 65. It appears in an '' occupatio'' passage wherein Seneca imagines Lucilius's objections to his arguments. ''Non vitae sed scholae discimus'' ("We learn uch literaturenot for life but for classtime") was thus already a complaint, the implication being that Lucilius would argue in favor of more practical education and that mastery of literature was overrated. During the early 19th century, this was emended in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

to ''non scholae, sed vitae discendum est'' ("We must learn not for school but for life").

References

{{reflist, 2 Latin mottos Seneca the Younger