Exhortation to Philosophy (Protrepticus)

And we worship the god in the proper manner if we prepare the mind nous intellect within us to be pure, as if from any stain of vice. We must adorn a temple with votive offerings, but the soul with learning. Just as one must be initiated into the lesser mysteries before the greater, one must have education before philosophy. The fruit of the earth is yielded in a year, but the fruit of philosophy is yielded at every moment of the hour. Just as one who has attained the best land must take the greatest care of it, one must take care of the soul, so that it may bear fruit worthy of its nature.

One might commonly exhort others to philosophy by setting forth such proverbial likenesses based on manifest things.

III. There is another type that also uses maxims, but which no longer sets forth comparisons through analogy; it is metrical and harmonious, genuine to these men the Pythagoreans, which we have received in, among other places, the Golden Verses Carmine Aurea, of which a few examples must be set forth, such as these:

Labor at these things, meditate upon these things, these you must love;
These will set you upon the footsteps of divine virtue.

For through these, he exhorts one to all fine learnings and practices, believing that one should neither spare labors nor slacken in any meditation, awakening love and zeal for fine things, and...