Advice to Graduate Students from an Unlikely Place

I thought Seneca had a clever little bit that was easily applicable to graduate students, and more than a few undergraduates as well.

“I warn you, however, not to act after the fashion of those who desire to be conspicuous rather than to improve, by doing things which will rouse comment as regards your dress or general way of living.  Repellent attire, unkempt hair, slovenly beard, open scorn of silver dishes, a couch on the bare earth and any other perverted forms of self-display, are to be avoided.”

Seneca, Epistles “V.  The Philosophers Means”