Lucian of Samosata Adversus indoctum et libros multos ementem 5

[5] What good, then, does it do you to buy them—unless you think that even the book-cases are learned because they contain so many of the works of the ancients!

Answer me this question, if you will—or better, as you are unable to answer, nod or shake your head inreply. If a man who did not know how to play the flute should buy the instrument of Timotheus or that of Ismenias, ¹ for which [smenias paid seven talents in Corinth, would that make him able to play, or would it do him no good to own it since he did not know how to use it as a musician would? You did well to shake your head. Even if he obtained the flute of Marsyas or Olympus, he could not play without previous instruction. And what if a man should get the bow of Heracles without being a Philoctetes so as to be able to draw it and shoot straight? What do you think about him? That he would make any showing worthy of an archer? You shake your head at this, too. So, of course, with a man who does not know how to steer, and one who has not practised riding; if the one should take the helm of a fine vessel, finely constructed in every detail both for beauty and for seaworthiness, and the other should get an Arab or a “Centaur” or a “Koppa-brand,” ² each would give proof, I have no doubt, that he did not know what to do with his property. Do you assent to this? Take my advice, now, and assent to this also; if an ignorant man like you should buy many books, would he not give rise to gibes at himself for his ignorance? Why do you shrink from assenting to this also? To do so is a clear giveaway, I maintain, and everybody who sees it at once quotes that very obvious proverb: “What has a dog to do with a bath?”