Is Education a "pastime" or a "way of life"?

The Diogenes referenced there is Diogenes of Tarsus. We know he wrote "Selections (Ἐπιλέκτα)," as well as an "Epitome of Epicurus' Ethical Doctrines."

The two words in question are closely related:

ἡ ἀγωγή = “conduct,” “training,” “discipline,” “method/practice,” literally “a leading.”

ἡ διαγωγή = “way of life,” “mode of living,” “manner of spending one’s life” literally “a leading through.”

So this could be anything from "conduct is way of life" to "practice is a mode of living," to "education is recreation." ἡ ἀγωγή can mean "education" but only in context, and the typical word for "education" is ἡ παιδεία.

Here are some other potentially related quotes (education in each case is ἡ παιδεία):

"[Epicurus is said] to write in a letter to Pythocles 'Avoid all education, blessed one – after taking up a little boat!'" _{^{Diogenes Laertius (fl.c. 220 CE), 10.6}}

I shall recall the most truth-loving Epicurus: who, though he was uninitiated in general education – he considered those people blessed who were proceeding toward philosophy similarly to himself ¬ uttering such words: 'I bless you, O dear one, because – clear of all education – You have rushed toward philosophy!'" _{Athenaeus (fl.c. 200 CE), Deipnosophists, 13.53}

"Natural science makes men who are neither boasters, nor productive of discourse, nor showing themselves to be involved in the education that is much-contested among the public ¬ but rather serious and also self-sufficient in their own particular goods – while not greatly considering things among the [current] situations" _{Epicurus, VS 45}

"Through the writings of Epicurus all men and all women beg and plead with Pythocles – so that he does not desire the so-called "liberal" education _{^{Plutarch (fl. 80 CE), Non Posse, 1094D, 12 sup.}}

"Epicurus, although he seems to be bitterly hostile to the Professors; in his book On Gifts and Gratitude he definitely tries to prove that it is necessary for the wise to learn grammar. Necessary, as we should say, not for the wise only but for all men." _{Sextus Empiricus (fl.c. 200 CE), Against the Grammarians, 1.49}

Interestingly, in Greek, "school" is the opposite of "occupation"

This διαγωγὴν / ἀγωγήν seems right up Epicurus' alley for wordplay.

My favorite example is VS9: 9. Compulsion is a bad thing, but there is no compulsion to live under compulsion. κακὸν ἀνάγκη, ἀλλʼ οὐδεμία ἀνάγκη ζῆν μετὰ ἀνάγκης.

Quote from Bryan

The two words in question are closely related:

ἡ ἀγωγή = “conduct,” “training,” “discipline,” “method/practice,” literally “a leading.”

ἡ διαγωγή = “way of life,” “mode of living,” “manner of spending one’s life” literally “a leading through.”

So this could be anything from "conduct is way of life" to "practice is a mode of living," to "education is recreation." ἡ ἀγωγή can mean "education" but only in context, and the typical word for "education" is ἡ παιδεία.

So, the context of 138 is a discussion of pains and virtues (edited for emphasis):

Epicurus holds the pains of the mind to be the worse ;... he holds mental pleasures to be greater than those of the body. And as proof that pleasure is the end he adduces the fact that living things, so soon as they are born, are well content with pleasure and are at enmity with pain, by the prompting of nature and apart from reason. Left to our own feelings, then, we shun pain ;...[138] And we choose the virtues too on account of pleasure and not for their own sake, .... So too in the twentieth book of his Epilecta says Diogenes, who also calls education ῾ἀγωγἤ recreation ῾ διαγωγ ἤ. Epicurus describes virtue as the sine qua non of pleasure, i.e. the one thing without which pleasure cannot be, everything else, food, for instance, being separable, i.e. not indispensable to pleasure.

It appears to me what is being conveyed is that "training is a way of life." We don't simply train once and done. We don't attend a self-improvement session and that's it. The training to correctly pursue pleasure is a way of life, it's a lifetime project.