Please use this thread for any quotes of Metrodorus you may find. Please exclude those also mentioned in the Vatican Sayings that he likely said.
All the Good of mortals is mortal. Moral Letters to Lucilius/Book XVI, Letter 96, line 9.
There is a type of pleasure related to sadness, which we must chase after in these times (written to his sister Batis, who recently lost a young child) -Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius 99, line 25.
Do not seek for things to happen as you wish, rather wish for things to happen as they happen - Metrodorus. Maximus the Confessor, PG 91, section 355 end, Catholic Library website.
I have prevented you, Fortune; I have caught you, and cut off every access, so that you cannot possibly reach me. Cicero. Tusculan Disputations. book 5, chapter 9, line 27.
The source of happiness in ourselves [is] greater than that which arises from objects - Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, book two, line 21.
We are not called to save the nation or get crowned by it for wisdom; what is called for, my dear Timocrates, is to eat and to drink wine, gratifying the belly without harming it.} ... It made me both happy and confident to have learned from Epicurus how to gratify the belly properly. ... {The belly, Timocrates, my man of wisdom, is the region that contains the highest end.} - Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible, 16, p. 1098D.
Metrodorus makes such a distinction in On Change, and says that he thinks "a compound made up of things that do not exist as numerically distinct is not only indestructible, but also is divine". Philodemus On Piety, Column 4. See Note 1.
Metrodorus, when he says “the rage of the wise man” in its true sense, shows also that he feels it “very briefly.” Philodemus On Anger, Column 45.
Metrodorus writes that, although he likes the idea that the best life is the one that is accompanied by tranquility, peace, and cares that cause minimal trouble, it does not seem that this goal is achieved at least in this way, namely, if we avoid all those things over which, if they were present, we would sometimes experience difficulties and distress. For in truth many things do cause some pain if they are present but disturb us more if they are absent. Philodemus. On Property Management, Column 12-13. Note: unclear how much of this is actually Metrodorus or Philodemus.
Note 1. Unclear meaning, related to debate on Epicurean Gods. some take it to mean that the image of a god is made of similar images but "gods" don't actually exist under the idealist interpretation, others think it means the gods take in new "parts" or "atoms" which keep it unified and everlasting even though it's not always the same entity under the realist interpretation.
