"Hero" Headers in The EpicureanFriends.com " Hero Box" on the Home Page of the Website

Started April 14, 2023:

Destiny, which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he [the wise man] laughs to scorn, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance or fortune is inconstant; whereas our own actions are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath that yoke of destiny which the natural philosophers have imposed. ... He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance. - Epicurus Letter to Menoeceus (Hicks translation)

Added May 31, 2023:

Cicero: Who can fail to see that there are in the nature of things these three states: one when we are in pleasure, another when we are in pain, the the third, the state in which I am now, and I suppose you too, when we are neither in pain nor in pleasure? ... Do you not see that between these extremes lies a great crowd of men who feel neither delight nor sorrow?" Torquatus: "Not at all, and I affirm that all who are without pain are in pleasure, and in that the fullest possible!" - Cicero;'s On Ends, Book 2 (V)16

Started 090323:

And when the question is asked, as it often is, why Epicureans are so numerous, I answer that there are no doubt other motives, but the motive which especially fascinates the crowd is this; they believe their chief to declare that all upright and honorable actions are in themselves productive of delight, or rather pleasure. Cicero, On Ends, Book One VII:25

Started September 6, 2023:

Quisquis enim sentit quemadmodum sit affectus, eum necesse est aut in voluptate esse aut in dolore.

[A]ny one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain.

- Torquatus in Cicero's "On Ends" Book One XI:38 (Reid)

Started 9/24/23:

Torquatus laughed. Come, that is a good joke," he said, "that the author of the doctrine that pleasure is the End of things desirable, the final and ultimate Good, should actually not know what manner of thing pleasure itself is.!" " Well," I [Cicero] replied, either Epicurus does not know what pleasure is, or the rest of mankind all the world over do not."

- Torquatus in Cicero's "On Ends" Book Two III:1 (Rackham)

Started October 3, 2023:

...[A]nything which is cut off from the state of pain is in the state of pleasure. (Reid)

...[T]o be without pain is to be in a state of pleasure. (Rackham)

...[W]hatever is free from pain is in pleasure. (Yonge)

...[Q]uia quod dolore caret id in voluptate est. (Torquatus/Cicero - Book One XI - 39)

Cicero: "...[B]ut unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that 'freedom from pain' does not mean the same thing as 'pleasure.'"

Torquatus: "Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for it is as true as any proposition can be."

...

Cicero: Still, granting that there is nothing better (that point I waive for the moment), surely it does not therefore follow that what I may call the negation of pain is the same thing as pleasure?"

Torquatus: "Absolutely the same, indeed the negation of pain is a very intense pleasure, the most intense pleasure possible."

CIcero - "On Ends" Book 2:iii:9 and 2:iii:11 (Rackham)

Started 12/23/23 ---

Remember that you are mortal, and you have a limited time to live, and in devoting yourself to discussion of the nature of time and eternity you have seen things that have been, are now, and are to come. Vatican Saying 10 (paraphrased, sometimes attributed to Metrodorus)