[52]
For just as we see the bee settling on all the flowers, and sipping the best from each, so also those who aspire to culture ought not to leave anything untasted, but should gather useful knowledge from every source.1 For hardly even with these pains can they overcome the defects of nature.
1 The figure is used by Lucretius in the same sense, De rerum natura iii. 11-12: floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,/omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta.