1. Ethics Is The Study of How To Live Well And Achieve Happiness -- Not An Abstract System of Rules
Ethics, for Epicurus, is not a system of abstract moral rules, duties, or obligations imposed from outside the individual by reason, divine command, or social convention. It is the study of how a living creature can best achieve the goal that nature herself has built into it from birth: happiness through pleasure. Just as a physician studies the human body not to describe it abstractly but to heal it, Epicurus studied human life not to construct a theory of obligation but to identify what genuinely makes it go well and what causes it to go badly. The therapeutic analogy is explicit in Epicurus himself: "Empty are the words of that philosopher who offers therapy for no human suffering. For just as there is no use in medical expertise if it does not give therapy for bodily diseases, so too there is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the suffering of the soul." (Porphyry, To Marcella 31)
This therapeutic purpose distinguishes Epicurean ethics fundamentally from the ethical frameworks of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and their modern successors. Platonic ethics asks what virtue is and what the Good is in itself, treating these as objects of abstract rational contemplation. Aristotelian ethics asks what the function of a human being is and what excellence of that function consists in, treating ethics as the working out of a teleological nature. Stoic ethics identifies the good with virtue alone and places the goal of life in the rational conformity to nature as a whole, including the providentially ordered cosmos. All three frameworks share a common structure: they subordinate pleasure, as the natural testimony of experience, to a standard that claims to transcend experience -- whether Form, function, or rational cosmos.
Epicurus rejected all three. The standard is not external to the living creature and not accessible only through abstract reason. It is built into every living creature from the first moment of existence: pleasure is sought and pain avoided, without instruction, without argument, and without waiting for rational justification. This is nature's own testimony about what the good is, delivered through the body and the feelings, and no philosophical argument for any competing theory of the good is more authoritative than this universal natural testimony.
The practical implication is that Epicurean ethics is not primarily a set of prohibitions or requirements. It is a set of tools -- for examining desires to distinguish real goods from empty ones, for understanding the structure of pleasure so that it can be pursued intelligently, for building the friendships and the understanding of nature that make genuine happiness stable and lasting. The questions Epicurean ethics asks are always grounded in the actual experience of living creatures: What genuinely produces pleasure? What produces pain in disguise as pleasure? What do we genuinely need, and what do we merely imagine we need? How can philosophical understanding transform the relationship between a person and the fears and desires that drive their life?
This section of the topical outline addresses the major topics in Epicurean ethics in logical sequence: the goal (C-2), the nature of pleasure (C-3), pleasure as the guide of life (C-4), the relationship between time and the good life (C-5), the three categories of desire (C-6), the instrumental role of virtue (C-7), and friendship, society, and justice (C-8), before turning to the more advanced topics of happiness as an emergent property of the well-lived life (C-9), the complementarity of pleasure and pain (C-10), and the role of philosophy itself (C-11 and beyond).
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore both old and young ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. (Bailey)
Empty are the words of that philosopher who offers therapy for no human suffering. For just as there is no use in medical expertise if it does not give therapy for bodily diseases, so too there is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the suffering of the soul. (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Page scan: Porphyry, To Marcella 31 (tr. Zimmern, 1896)
A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Natural justice is a token of reciprocal usefulness, neither to harm one another nor to be harmed. (tr. Long & Sedley)
I affirm now and always, with a great shout to all Greeks and foreigners, pleasure is the end of the best lifestyle, while the virtues which are now being inappropriately fussed about by them are in no way the end, but the means to the end. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Divine pleasure, the guide of life. (Munro/Rouse)
For most men rest is stagnation and activity madness. (Bailey)
2. Pleasure Is The Supreme Good, and Happiness Is The Goal Of Life, Because A Life of Happiness Is A Life Of Pleasure
Epicurus held happiness (/eudaimonia/) -- and not "tranquility," "absence of disturbance," or any other narrowing substitute -- as the goal of life. This is consistent with most other ancient Greek philosophical schools, and the key question is what Epicurus meant by happiness. His answer was direct: a happy life is a life in which pleasure predominates over pain, considered across the whole of one's experience, bodily and mental. Because Epicurus held that pleasure and pain are the only two feelings, and that they are the natural guides nature has given us for evaluating what is good and what is bad, a happy life is simply a life that is predominantly pleasurable -- and Epicurus defined pleasure broadly as all experience that is not painful.
A critical clarification is that Epicurus was not describing the goal as any particular pleasure or the maximum intensity of pleasure at any given moment. He was very clear that sometimes we correctly choose to endure a lesser pain in order to obtain a greater pleasure, and sometimes we correctly pass over a lesser pleasure to avoid a greater pain. The goal is the best overall balance across the whole of life -- and he was equally clear that a life lived with wisdom, prudence, and good relationships with friends tends to achieve this far more reliably than a life devoted to intense bodily stimulation. The goal is happiness as a full positive life, not a bare absence of suffering.
One of the most important editorial standards for anyone writing about Epicurean philosophy is to resist the substitution of "tranquility" or "ataraxia" for "happiness" as the goal. This substitution is ancient -- it was promoted by critics, Stoicizing commentators, and later religious writers who were uncomfortable with pleasure as the highest good -- but it misrepresents Epicurus at the most fundamental level. Ataraxia (freedom from mental disturbance) is a real and important concept in Epicurean ethics, but it describes a feature of the mind that has achieved happiness, not the goal itself. A person who achieves only the absence of disturbance and nothing more has achieved something real but incomplete: the full Epicurean goal is positive happiness through pleasure, of which freedom from disturbance is one component. The Letter to Menoeceus, the Principal Doctrines, and every serious ancient account of Epicureanism are unanimous: the goal is pleasure and happiness, not tranquility.
It also helps to know the specific philosophical argument that "the limit of pleasure" (PD3, PD18) was written to answer, since without that context the doctrine invites exactly the zero-state misreading it was meant to foreclose. Plato, in the /Philebus/, argued that pleasure cannot be the highest good because, unlike virtue, it has no natural limit: pleasures admit of "more and less" without any stopping point, so chasing pleasure is like pouring water into a bottomless vessel, and only something that can be completely and finally achieved -- for Plato, virtue -- qualifies as the highest good. Seneca restates the same argument centuries later and presses it directly against Epicurus's own reported two-goods formula: "the ability to increase is proof that a thing is still imperfect" (/Letters to Lucilius/ 66.45-47), so if pleasure can always be increased it can never be the complete good. Epicurus's answer is that pleasure does have a limit, and that limit is reached exactly when all pain is removed (PD3); beyond that point pleasure is varied in content but not increased in magnitude (PD18). This is not a retreat to a minimal state -- it is a direct rebuttal of Plato's and Seneca's "no limit" objection, on their own terms, establishing that the full, pleasurable life is a completed and achievable good rather than an endless, ever-receding chase. See the companion article "The Full Cup Model" for the full argument.
Diogenes Laertius's own testimony on this point carries particular weight. He is the source who preserved Epicurus's three surviving letters, the Principal Doctrines, and the biographical record that makes any reconstruction of the school's actual teaching possible at all -- no other ancient author did more to transmit the primary evidence for Epicurean philosophy. When he quotes Epicurus's letter asking a friend for a small store of cheese so that he might occasionally "have a feast," and then adds in his own voice, "Such was the man who taught that the end is pleasure" (X.11), he is not a hostile critic scoring a point against a school he opposed -- he is the compiler who had read the letters, the Doctrines, and the biographical record more completely than anyone else in antiquity, offering his own considered summary of what that record adds up to. If any ancient author was positioned to digest the whole of the evidence and get the big picture right, it was the one who had assembled the primary sources himself.
As DeWitt stated in his chapter on "The New Hedonism" - "Finally, Epicurus scored a logical point over his predecessors in drawing a distinction between the greatest good, which he declared to be life itself, and the end or telos. His predecessors, when they defined the good or telos as that to which all other goods were referred while the good itself was referred to nothing, were illogical. _Every supreme good, even the eudaemonistic good of Aristotle, is meaningless to the dead; every supreme good presumes life._ It was very natural that Epicurus should have been the one to place the finger upon this confusion of thought; since he denied immortality, he discerned that all values must be concentrated in the space between birth and death. Life itself became the greatest good. Modern editors, however, still labor under the old misapprehension that pleasure is the Epicurean summum bonum and emend the text in order to save the fallacy."
[Diogenes Laertius quotes this from one of Epicurus's own letters, asking a friend for a small store of preserved cheese so that he might occasionally "have a feast" -- evidence of how modest an actual feast meant to the man whose doctrine that pleasure is the supreme good is so often caricatured, by hostile and modern readers alike, as advocacy of luxury.]
'Send me,' he says, 'some preserved cheese, that when I like I may have a feast.' Such was the man who taught that the end is pleasure.
Rackham: IX. I will start then in the manner approved by the author of the system himself, by settling what are the essence and qualities of the thing that is the object of our inquiry; not that I suppose you to be ignorant of it, but because this is the logical method of procedure. We are inquiring, then, what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in pleasure; pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, pain the Chief Evil. This he sets out to prove as follows: Every animal, as soon as it is born, seeks for pleasure, and delights in it as the Chief Good, while it recoils from pain as the Chief Evil, and so far as possible avoids it. This it does as long as it remains unperverted, at the prompting of Nature's own unbiased and honest verdict. Hence Epicurus refuses to admit any necessity for argument or discussion to prove that pleasure is desirable and pain to be avoided. These facts, he thinks, are perceived by the senses, as that fire is hot, snow white, honey sweet, none of which things need be proved by elaborate argument: it is enough merely to draw attention to them. (For there is a difference, he holds, between formal syllogistic proof of a thing and a mere notice or reminder: the former is the method for discovering abstruse and recondite truths, the latter for indicating facts that are obvious and evident.) Strip mankind of sensation, and nothing remains; it follows that Nature herself is the judge of that which is in accordance with or contrary to nature. What does Nature perceive or what does she judge of, beside pleasure and pain, to guide her actions of desire and of avoidance?
Long and Sedley: [Torquatus] We are investigating what is the final and ultimate good, which as all philosophers agree must be of such a kind that it is the end to which everything is the means, but it is not itself the means to anything. Epicurus situates this in pleasure, which he wants to be the greatest good with pain as the greatest bad. His doctrine begins in this way: as soon as every animal is born, it seeks after pleasure and rejoices in it as the greatest good, while it rejects pain as the greatest bad and, as far as possible, avoids it; and it does this when it is not yet corrupted, on the innocent and sound judgment of nature itself. Hence he says there is no need to prove or discuss why pleasure should be pursued and pain avoided. He thinks these matters are sensed just like the heat of fire, the whiteness of snow and the sweetness of honey, none of which needs confirmation by elaborate arguments; it is enough to point them out. Since man has nothing left if sensations are removed from him, it must be the case that nature itself judges what is in accordance with or contrary to nature. What does it perceive or what does it judge except pleasure and pain as a basis for its pursuit or avoidance of anything? Some of our school, however, want to transmit these doctrines in a subtler way: they deny the sufficiency of judging what is good or bad by sensation, saying that the intrinsic desirability of pleasure and the intrinsic undesirabiiity of pain can be understood by the mind too and by reason. So they say that our sense that the one is desirable and the other undesirable is virtually a natural and innate preconception in our minds. To enable you to view the origin of the entire mistake of those who criticize pleasure and praise pain, I will disclose the whole matter and expound the actual words of the famous discoverer of the truth, the architect, as it were, of the happy life. No one rejects or dislikes or avoids pleasure itself because it is pleasure, but because great pains result for those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally. Nor again is there anyone who loves, goes after or wants to get pain itself because it is pain, but because circumstances sometimes occur which enable him to gain some great pleasure by toil and pain. The pleasure we pursue is not just that which moves our actual nature with some gratification and is perceived by the senses in company with a certain delight; we hold that to be the greatest pleasure which is perceived once all pain has been removed. For when we are freed from pain, we rejoice in the actual freedom and absence of all distress; but everything in which we rejoice is pleasure, just as everything that distresses us is pain; therefore the complete removal of pain has rightly been called pleasure. Thus when hunger and thirst have been removed by food and drink, the mere withdrawal of distress brings pleasure forth as its consequence. So quite generally the removal of pain causes pleasure to take its place. Hence Epicurus did not accept the existence of anything in between pleasure and pain. What some people regarded as in between - the complete absence of pain - was not only pleasure but also the greatest pleasure. For anyone aware of his own condition must either have pleasure or pain. Epicurus, moreover, supposes that complete absence of pain marks the limit of the greatest pleasure, so that thereafter pleasure can be varied and differentiated but not increased and expanded. But at Athens there is a statue in the Ceramicus of Chrysippus seated with outstretched hand, which indicated his delight in the following little syllogism: 'Is there anything that your hand, in its present condition, wants?' 'Certainly not.' 'But if pleasure were the good, it would have a want.' 'I think so.' 'Therefore pleasure is not the good.' The argument is entirely valid against the Cyrenaics, but does not touch Epicurus. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[A second, independent ancient voice -- not Cicero's hostile report of Torquatus, but an Epicurean himself, in stone, addressing the general public -- stating as bluntly as the record allows that pleasure, not virtue, is the end, and that the virtues are the means to it.]
I affirm now and always, with a great shout to all Greeks and foreigners, pleasure is the end of the best lifestyle, while the virtues which are now being inappropriately fussed about by them (being transferred from the position of means to that of end) are in no way the end, but the means to the end. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Torquatus's formal derivation of the Telos: since pleasure and pain are what actually drive every choice and avoidance, and the Telos is by definition that to which all else is a means but which is not itself a means to anything further, pleasure -- not virtue -- must be the Chief Good. Rendered here as "live pleasantly" rather than Rackham's "live agreeably": the Latin is /iucunde vivere/, an adverbial form of /iucundus/ ("pleasant, delightful"), not a direct cognate of /voluptas/ ("pleasure") -- but "pleasantly" keeps the translation aligned with how Bailey renders the identical construction elsewhere on this site (e.g. Principal Doctrine 5, "live pleasantly"), rather than drifting toward the vaguer "agreeably."]
Pleasure and pain moreover supply the motives of desire and of avoidance, and the springs of conduct generally. This being so, it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only as being a means to the attainment of a life of pleasure. But that which is not itself a means to anything else, but to which all else is a means, is what the Greeks term the Telos, the highest, ultimate or final Good. It must therefore be admitted that the Chief Good is to live pleasantly.
“He {Publius Clodius} praised those most who are said to be above all others the teachers and eulogists of pleasure {the Epicureans}. … He added that these same men were quite right in saying that the wise do everything for their own interests; that no sane man should engage in public affairs; that nothing was preferable to a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasures. But those who said that men should aim at an honorable position, should consult the public interest, should think of duty throughout life not of self-interest, should face danger for their country, receive wounds, welcome death – these he called visionaries and madmen.” Note: Here is a link to Perseus where the Latin and translation of this can be compared. The Latin is: “nihil esse praestabilius otiosa vita, plena et conferta voluptatibus.” See also here for word translations.
[Lucretius's own compressed formula for the same claim -- also cited above under "Ethics Is The Study of How To Live Well" -- included here as well since nothing in the ancient record states this section's heading more memorably or in fewer words.]
/Dux vitae dia voluptas./ -- Divine pleasure, the guide of life. (Munro/Rouse)
[Seneca -- a Stoic, and no friend to Epicurean doctrine -- reports the actual inscription posted over the gate of Epicurus's Garden. A hostile witness confirming the school's own public self-description in Epicurus's own lifetime is stronger evidence than anything a sympathetic source could offer.]
/Hospes, hic bene manebis; hic summum bonum voluptas est./ -- "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure."
[Seneca again, contrasting his own Stoic restraint with the Epicurean position -- addressed to a rhetorical "you" representing the pleasure-school rather than naming Epicurus in this particular sentence, though Epicurus is named a few sections later in the same work as the position under attack throughout. Included as further corroboration from a hostile witness, with that caveat noted.]
/Tu voluptatem complecteris, ego compesco; tu voluptate frueris, ego utor; tu illam summum bonum putas, ego nec bonum; tu omnia voluptatis causa facis, ego nihil./ -- "You embrace pleasure, I restrain it; you enjoy pleasure, I make use of it; you think it the highest good, I do not even think it a good; you do everything for the sake of pleasure, I do nothing."
[Metrodorus -- Epicurus's closest colleague and co-founder of the school -- calling the escape from evil "the supreme good," preserved by a hostile witness (Plutarch) quoting him directly. Note on terminology: "to escape evil" here means the removal of pain, not "tranquility" in the later, imported sense. Epicurus recognized only two feelings, pleasure and pain, with no third neutral state between them (see Torquatus, /On Ends/ I.37-38 above); given that framework, the complete removal of pain is not a separate, lesser good next to pleasure -- it simply *is* pleasure, described from the negative side. Metrodorus's "supreme good" and Torquatus's "greatest pleasure" are the same claim in the same technical vocabulary, not two different goals.]
"This single thing, to escape evil, is the supreme good; for there is no room to lodge this good in where no more of what is painful and afflicting goes out."
[Epicurus's own words, quoted by Plutarch immediately after the Metrodorus passage above in the same treatise -- the same hostile witness preserving both men making the identical claim in their own words. Given in full here; also cited in shortened form under Controversies ("Is Pleasure -- Or Tranquility -- The Epicurean Goal?"). "Stroll about" (Greek /peripatē/) is a pun on the Peripatetics, per Einarson & De Lacy's footnote ad loc.
Two independent translations, confirming the wording and the Usener 423 fragment number:
- Plutarch, /Moralia/ XIV, "That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible" 7, 1091A, trans. Benedict Einarson and Phillip H. De Lacy, Loeb Classical Library 428 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 44-47. Einarson & De Lacy's footnote at this passage cites "Frag. 423 (ed. Usener)" directly.
- Plutarch, "That It Is Not Possible to Live Pleasurably according to the Doctrine of Epicurus" 7, in /Plutarch's Morals/, trans. William W. Goodwin (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874); also on the Perseus Digital Library and as Project Gutenberg #3052. Goodwin's rendering of the same lines: "For what occasions transcending joy (he saith) is some great impending evil escaped; and in this lies the very nature and essence of good, if a man attain unto it aright."]
Not only is the basis that they assume for the pleasurable life untrustworthy and insecure, it is quite trivial and paltry as well, inasmuch as their "thing delighted" -- their good -- is an escape from ills, and they say that they can conceive of no other, and indeed that our nature has no place at all in which to put its good except the place left when its evil is expelled. ... Epicurus too makes a similar statement to the effect that the good is a thing that arises out of your very escape from evil and from your memory and reflection and gratitude that this has happened to you. His words are these: "For what produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the contrast of the great evil escaped; and this is the nature of good, if you apply your mind rightly and then stand firm and do not stroll about, prating meaninglessly about good." (Einarson & De Lacy)
- Page scan: Plutarch, That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible 7, 1091A (Usener 423)
- Online text: Plutarch, That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible (tr. Goodwin, 1874) -- Perseus Digital Library (same translation used for this project's citation clips; search page for exact passage)
We must reckon that some desires are natural and others empty, and of the natural some are necessary, others natural only; and of the necessary some are necessary for happiness, others for the body's freedom from stress, and others for life itself. For the steady observation of these things makes it possible to refer every choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the soul's freedom from disturbance, since this is the end belonging to the blessed life. For this is what we aim at in all our actions - to be free from pain and anxiety. Once we have got this, all the soul's tumult is released, since the creature cannot go as if in pursuit of something it needs and search for any second thing as the means of maximizing the good of the soul and the body. For the time when we need pleasure is when we are in pain from the absence of pleasure. < But when we are not in pain > we no longer need pleasure. This is why we say that pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the good which is primary and congenital; from it we begin every choice and avoidance, and we come back to it, using the feeling as the yardstick for judging every good thing. Since pleasure is the good which is primary and congenital, for this reason we do not choose every pleasure either, but we sometimes pass over many pleasures in cases when their out come for us is a greater quantity of discomfort; and we regard many pains as better than pleasures in cases when our endurance of pains is followed by a greater and long-lasting pleasure. Every pleasure, then, because of its natural affinity, is something good, yet not every pleasure is choiceworthy. Correspondingly, every pain is something bad, but not every pain is by nature to be avoided. However, we have to make our judgment on all these points by a calculation and survey of advantages and disadvantages. For at certain times we treat the good as bad and conversely the bad as good. W e also regard self-sufficiency as a great good, not with the aim of always living off little, but to enable us to live off little if we do not have much, in the genuine conviction that they derive the greatest pleasure from luxury w h o need it least, and that everything natural is easy to procure, but what is empty is hard to procure. Plain flavors produce pleasure equal to an expensive diet whenever all the pain of need has been removed; and bread and water generate the highest pleasure whenever they are taken by one who needs them. Therefore the habit of simple and inexpensive diet maximizes health and makes a man energetic in facing the necessary business of daily life; it also strengthens our character when we encounter luxuries from time to time, and emboldens us in the face of fortune. So when we say that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of the dissipated and those that consist in having a good time, as some out of ignorance and disagreement or refusal to understand suppose we do, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul. For what produces the pleasant life is not continuous drinking and parties or pederasty or womanizing or the enjoyment of fish and the other dishes of an expensive table, but sober reasoning which tracks down the causes of every choice and avoidance, and which banishes the opinions that beset souls with the greatest confusion. Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is prudence. Therefore prudence is even more precious than philosophy, and it is the natural source of all the remaining virtues; it teaches the impossibility of living pleasurably without living prudently, honourably and justly, <and the impossibility of living prudently, honourably and justly> without living pleasurably. For the virtues are naturally linked with living pleasurably, and living pleasurably is inseparable from them. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[This composite quote runs continuously from sec. 127 through sec. 132; below are the three consecutive Bailey pages it spans.]
- Page scan: Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 127-8 (tr. Bailey)
- Page scan: Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 129-131 (tr. Bailey), continued
- Page scan: Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 132 (tr. Bailey), continued
- Online text: Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 127-32 -- Perseus Digital Library (Diogenes Laertius X, tr. Hicks, Loeb)
The removal of all pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, pain or distress or their combination is absent. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Pain does not last continuously in the flesh: when acute it is there for a very short time, while the pain which just exceeds the pleasure in the flesh does not persist for many days; and chronic illnesses contain an excess of pleasure in the flesh over pain. (tr. Long & Sedley)
One should not force nature but persuade it. And we will persuade it by fulfilling the necessary desires, and the natural ones too if they do not harm us, but sharply rejecting the harmful ones. (tr. Long & Sedley)
No pleasure is something bad per se: but the causes of some pleasures produce stresses many times greater than the pleasures. (tr. Long & Sedley)
If every pleasure were condensed in < location > and duration and distributed all over the structure or the dominant parts of our nature, pleasures would never differ from one another. (tr. Long & Sedley)
If the causes of the pleasures of the dissipated released mental fears concerning celestial phenomena and death and distress, and in addition taught the limit of desires, we should never have any reason to reproach them [i. e. the dissipated], since they would be satisfying themselves with pleasures from all directions and would never have pain or distress, which constitutes the bad. (tr. Long & Sedley)
The pleasure in the flesh does not increase when once the pain of need has been removed, but it is only varied. And the limit of pleasure in the mind is produced by rationalizing those very things and their congeners which used to present the mind with its greatest fears. (tr. Long & Sedley)
If you fail to refer each of your actions on every occasion to nature's end, and stop short at something else in choosing or avoiding, your actions will not be consequential upon your theories. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Whenever intense passion is present in natural desires which do not lead to pain if they are unfulfilled, these have their origin in empty opinion; and the reason for their persistence is not their own nature but the empty opinion of the person. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Blessed is not the young man but the old one who has lived honourably. For the young man keeps changing his mind and veers about under the influence of fortune. But the old one has lowered his anchor in old age as though in harbor, and with secure gratitude has clamped the good things he hardly hoped for previously. (tr. Long & Sedley)
We must not compel nature but persuade her; and we shall persuade her by pursuing the necessary desires, and the natural ones if they do no harm, but harshly rebuking the harmful ones. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Poverty, when measured by nature's end, is great wealth, but unlimited wealth is great poverty. (tr. Long & Sedley)
The flesh's cry is not to be hungry or thirsty or cold. For one who is in these states and expects to remain so could rival even Zeus in happiness. (tr. Long & Sedley)
It takes just the same time for the greatest good to be created and for it to be enjoyed. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Letter from Metrodorus to Pythocles] You tell me that the movement of your flesh is too inclined towards sexual intercourse. So long as you do not break the laws or disturb proper and established conventions or distress any of your neighbors or ravage your body or squander the necessities of life, act upon your inclination in anyway you like. Yet it is impossible not to be constrained by at least one of these. For sex is never advantageous, and one should be content if it does no harm. (tr. Long & Sedley)
What is insatiable is not the stomach, as people say, but the false opinion concerning its unlimited filling. (tr. Long & Sedley)
There can be refinement even on slender means, and one who fails to take account of it is in a similar position to someone who goes astray through ignoring limits. (tr. Long & Sedley)
This question should be applied to all desires; what will happen to me if the object of my desire is achieved and what if it is not? (tr. Long & Sedley)
The occurrence of certain bodily pains is a help to protecting oneself against similar ones. (tr. Long & Sedley)
What releases the soul's disturbance and produces worthwhile joy is neither possessing the greatest wealth, nor public recognition and respect, nor anything else which is dependent on indeterminate causes. (tr. Long & Sedley)
When winds are troubling the waters on a great sea, it is a pleasure to view from the land another man's great struggles; not because it is a joy or delight that anyone should be storm-tossed, but because it is a pleasure to observe from what troubles you yourself are free. It is a pleasure too to gaze on great contests of war deployed over the plains when you yourself have no part in the danger. But most pleasant of all is to be master of those tranquil regions well fortified on high by the teaching of the wise. From there you can look down on others and see them wandering this way and that and straying in their quest for a way of life -- competing in talent, fighting over social class, striving night and day with utmost effort to rise to the heights of wealth and become owners of substance. O miserable minds of men, O unseeing hearts! How great the darkness of life, how great the dangers too in which this portion of rime, whatsoever it be, is spent. Do you not see that nature screams out for nothing but the removal of pain from the body and the mind's enjoyment of the joyous sensation when anxiety and fear have been taken away? So we see that our bodily nature needs only the few things which remove pain, in such a way that they can also furnish many delights rather pleasurably from time to time. Nor does nature itself require it, if there are no golden statues of youths in the entrance halls grasping fiery torches in their right hands to provide evening banquets with light, or if the house does not gleam with silver and shine with gold and a carved and gilded ceiling does not resound to the lute, when, in spite of this, men lie together on the soft grass near a stream of water beneath the branches of a lofty tree refreshing their bodies with joy and at no great cost, especially when the weather smiles and the season of the year spreads flowers all over the green grass. Nor do hot fevers leave the body more swiftly if you toss on embroidered tapestries and shimmering purple than if you have to he on common drapery, Therefore, since riches are of no benefit in our body, nor social class nor a kingdom's glory, we should further suppose that they are of no benefit to the mind as well -- unless it should happen, when you see your legions swarming over the area of the plain and stirring up mock war, that religion frightened by these things flees from your mind in terror, and the fears of death vacate your heart and leave it free from anxiety. But if we see that this is absurd and ludicrous, and if in truth the fears of men and the anxieties that follow them are not afraid of the sound of arms and fierce weapons, but boldly consort with kings and owners of substance and show no respect for the glitter of gold nor the brilliant gleam of a purple robe, why do you doubt that all this power belongs to reason, especially when all life is straggling in darkness? For just as children are terrified and afraid of everything m blind darkness, so we in the fight are at times afraid of things no more fearful than what children shudder at in darkness and imagine will happen. This terror and darkness of the mind, then, must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by nature's appearance and rationale. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
A free life cannot acquire great wealth, because this is not easy without servitude to mobs or monarchs; yet it possesses all things in unfailing abundance, and if it does achieve great wealth, this too it can share so as to win the goodwill of one's neighbors. (Bailey)
When the bodies of the diffusing flavor are smooth, they give pleasure by touching and stimulating all the moist and oozing regions in the tongue's vicinity. But by contrast, the more each of the bodies is furnished with roughness, they prick the sense and tear it in their encounter. Next comes pleasure from the flavor at the boundary of the palate. But when it has plunged right down through the throat, there is no pleasure while it is all spreading into the limbs. And it makes no difference at all what diet nourishes the body, provided that you can digest what you take and spread it out in the limbs and keep a moist tenor in the stomach. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
It was Athens of glorious name that first long ago bestowed on feeble mortals the produce of corn, and refurbished life, and established laws. It was Athens too that first bestowed soothing pleasures on life, when she gave birth to a man endowed with such insight, who long ago gave utterance to everything with truthful voice. Dead though he is, his godlike discoveries spread his fame of old and now it reaches to heaven. When he saw that mortals were already supplied with almost everything that need demands for their livelihood, and that their life as far as possible was firm and secure, that men had abundance of power through wealth and social status and fame and took pride in the good name of their sons, yet that at home no one's heart was any less troubled, and that they were constantly wrecking their life, despite their intentions, under a compulsion to rage with aggressive complaints, he recognized that the flaw was there, caused by the utensil itself, and that by its flaw everything within was being befouled, whatever came in assembled from outside including beneficial things. He saw that the cause was partly the leaks and holes, which made it impossible for the utensil ever to be filled up, and partly its virtually polluting everything it had taken in with a foul taste. And so he purged people's hearts with his truthful words, and established the limit of desire and fear, and laid out the nature of the highest good to which we all strive, and indicated the way by whose narrow path we may press on towards it on a straight course. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
Shortly I will speak about imprudence, but for the present about the virtues and pleasure. Now if, fellow men, the question at issue between these people [the Stoics] and ourselves involved examining 'what is the means of happiness?', and they wanted to say the virtues, as is in fact true, there would be no need to do anything except to agree with them and abandon the matter. But since, as I was saying, the issue is not 'what is the means of happiness?', but what being happy is and what our nature ultimately desires, I affirm now and always, with a great shout to all Greeks and foreigners, pleasure is the end of the best lifestyle, while the virtues which are now being inappropriately fussed about by them (being transferred from the position of means to that of end) are in no way the end, but the means to the end. (tr. Long & Sedley)
It is difficult for people in general to calculate the superiority of these mental feelings [over bodily ones]. For it is impossible to suffer the extremes of both on a single occasion by way of a comparison ... on account of the rarity of this occurrence and of the destruction of life when it does occur. Therefore no criterion has been found for measuring the superiority of these over the others. Rather, when someone has bodily pains he says they are greater than mental ones, but when < he has mental pains he says they are the greater >. For < present things > are always more convincing than absent ones, and each person evidently either through necessity or through pleasure assigns the superioriry to the feeling which has hold of him. But by means of many other considerations a wise man reasons out this point that the majority find hard to calculate. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Note: L&S (1987) cite this by the old column-locus "38.1.8-3.14." In M.F. Smith's later complete edition (the master source used for this project's Oinoanda clips), this passage is renumbered as Fragment 44 + Fragment 45.]
- Page scan: Diogenes of Oinoanda, Fr. 44-45 (tr. Smith)
Happiness is a twofold notion: the highest, such as god enjoys, which is incapable of increase; and the happiness which is capable of addition and subtraction of pleasures. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
Epicurus disagrees with the Cyrenaics on pleasure: they do not admit static pleasure but only the kinetic type, whereas he accepts both types, for soul and for body, as he says in his book On Choice and Avoidance and in On The End and in Book 1 of On Lives. In On Choices he speaks as follows: 'Freedom from disturbance and absence of pain are static pleasures; but joy and delight are regarded as kinetic activities.' He has a further disagreement with the Cyrenaics: they take bodily pains to be worse than mental ones, but he takes the mental ones to be worse, since the flesh is storm-tossed only in the present, but the soul in past, present and future. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Epicurus On The End] 'For my part I cannot conceive of anything as the good if I remove the pleasures perceived by means of taste and sex and listening to music, and the pleasant motions felt by the eyes through beautiful sights, or any other pleasures which some sensation generates in a man as a whole. Certainly it is impossible to say that mental delight is the only good. For a delighted mind, as I understand it, consists in the expectation of all the things I just mentioned - to be of a nature able to acquire them without pain... ' A little later he adds: 'I have often asked men who were called wise what they could retain as the content of goods if they removed those things, unless they wanted to pour out empty words. I could learn nothing from them; and if they want to babble on about virtues and wisdoms, they will be speaking of nothing except the way in which those pleasures I mentioned are produced.' (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Speaking of Epicureanism] The body rejoices just so long as it perceives a present pleasure; but the mind perceives both the present pleasure, along with the body, and foresees the one that is coming without allowing the past one to flow away. Hence the wise man will always have a constant supply of tightly-knit pleasures, since the anticipation of pleasures hoped for is united with the recollection of those already experienced. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[The Epicurean spokesman, Torquatus] No error arises in respect of the ultimate good and bad themselves, i.e. pleasure or pain, but people do make mistakes in these matters owing to their ignorance of the sources of pleasure and pain. Furthermore, we admit that mental pleasures and pains have their source in bodily ones, but we do not suppose that this precludes mental pleasures and pains from being much greater than those of the body. (tr. Long & Sedley)
You [Torquatus, the Epicurean) will be embarrassed, I say, by that picture which Cleanthes made a habit of depicting in very apt words. He used to call his listeners to imagine a painting of Pleasure most beautifully clad and seated on a throne with the trappings of a queen, and the virtues at her side as her handmaids: they made it their sole task and function to minister to Pleasure, and merely whispered in her ear the warning (if the picture could make this clear) to be careful not to do anything imprudently that might offend people's thoughts or from which any pain might arise. 'As for us virtues, we were born to be your slaves; we have no other business." (tr. Long & Sedley)
Natural and necessary [desires], according to Epicurus, are ones which bring relief from pain, such as drinking when thirsty; natural but non-necessary are ones which merely vary pleasure but do not remove pain, such as expensive foods; neither natural nor necessary are ones for things like crowns and erection of statues. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Epicurus says: 'The pleasure of the stomach is the beginning and root of all good, and it is to this that wisdom and over-refinement actually refer.' And in On The End he again says: 'We should honor rectitude and the virtues and such like things if they bring pleasure; but if not, we should say goodbye to them.' (tr. Long & Sedley)
[According to the Epicureans] The comfortable state of the flesh, and the confident expectation of this, contain the highest and most secure joy for those who are capable of reasoning. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: tr. Goodwin (1874), Against Epicurean Happiness ("Pleasure Not Attainable"), full surrounding context. Below: the same passage as excerpted by Long & Sedley.]
- Page scan: Plutarch, Against Epicurean Happiness 1089D (tr. Goodwin, 1874)
- Page scan: Plutarch, Against Epicurean Happiness 1089D (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Online text: Plutarch, That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible (tr. Goodwin, 1874) -- Perseus Digital Library (same translation used for this project's citation clips; search page for exact passage)
Nature is weak towards evil, not towards good: because it is saved by pleasures, but destroyed by pains. (Bailey)
Not choose to see that nature craves for herself no more than this, that pain hold aloof from the body, and she in mind enjoy a feeling of pleasure exempt from care and fear? (Munro)
It is better to endure particular pains which produce greater satisfactions that we may enjoy. It is well to abstain from particular pleasures which produce more severe pains so that we may not suffer them. (Bailey)
[The Platonic argument that pleasure cannot be the highest good because, unlike virtue, it has no natural limit -- the argument Epicurus's doctrine of the limit of pleasure directly answers.]
SOCRATES: Have pleasure and pain a limit, or do they belong to the class which admits of more and less? PHILEBUS: They belong to the class which admits of more, Socrates; for pleasure would not be perfectly good if she were not infinite in quantity and degree. SOCRATES: Nor would pain, Philebus, be perfectly evil.
[Continuing the same argument in a later passage: pleasure's worth is a matter of purity/quality, not quantity -- the "impure pleasure" side of Plato's case against pleasure as the highest good.]
SOCRATES: Suppose that we first of all take whiteness. How can there be purity in whiteness, and what purity? Is that purest which is greatest or most in quantity, or that which is most unadulterated and freest from any admixture of other colours? PROTARCHUS: Clearly that which is most unadulterated. SOCRATES: True, Protarchus; and so the purest white, and not the greatest or largest in quantity, is to be deemed truest and most beautiful?
[A hostile restatement of the Platonic no-limit argument, mocking the 'absence of pain' reading of Epicurus at face value.]
To think that the highest good is the absence of pain is surely not characteristic of the Peripatetics or Stoics but of the bedridden philosophers. For who would not understand that this is the point discussed by the sick and those placed in some state of pain? What is so ridiculous as to consider that which a physician can give, as the highest good.
[Seneca states the Stoic principle behind the no-limit argument: only what is grounded in false opinion, not nature, admits of no stopping point.]
If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich. Nature's wants are slight; the demands of opinion are boundless.... Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping point. The false has no limits.
[Seneca presses the Platonic no-limit argument directly against Epicurus's own reported two-goods formula, insisting that anything capable of increase cannot be the complete, highest good -- precisely the challenge PD3 and PD18 answer.]
We find mentioned in the works of Epicurus two goods, of which his Supreme Good, or blessedness, is composed, namely, a body free from pain and a soul free from disturbance. These goods, if they are complete, do not increase; for how can that which is complete increase? The body is, let us suppose, free from pain; what increase can there be to this absence of pain? The soul is composed and calm; what increase can there be to this tranquility? Just as fair weather, purified into the purest brilliancy, does not admit of a still greater degree of clearness, so too, when a man takes care of his body and of his soul, weaving the texture of his good from both, his condition is perfect, and he has found the consummation of his prayers, if there is no commotion in his soul or pain in his body. Whatever delights fall to his lot over and above these two things do not increase his Supreme Good; they merely season it, so to speak, and add spice to it. For the absolute good of man's nature is satisfied with peace in the body and peace in the soul.... What can be added to that which is perfect? Nothing -- otherwise that was not perfect to which something has been added.... The ability to increase is proof that a thing is still imperfect.
[Note: this quote splices two passages from the same letter using "..." -- the Epicurus two-goods discussion (Epistle 66, secs. 45-47) and a separate "ability to increase" refrain used earlier in the same very long letter (sec. ~9) in a different, more general context about virtue. Both are genuine Seneca text; the "..." already flags the join.]
Away from this time forth with thy tears, rascal; a truce to thy complaining: thou decayest after full enjoyment of all the prizes of life... or ever thou thoughtest, death has taken his stand at thy pillow, before thou canst take thy departure sated and filled with good things. (Bailey)
Then to be ever feeding the thankless nature of the mind, and never to fill it full and sate it with good things, as the seasons of the year do for us, when they come round and bring their fruits and varied delights, though after all we are never filled with the enjoyments of life, this methinks is to do what is told of the maidens in the flower of their age, to keep pouring water into a perforated vessel which in spite of all can never be filled full. (Bailey)
[The same vocabulary of fullness and unbridled natural vigor that Lucretius applies to a well-lived human life, applied here to the natural world's own abundance.]
In the beginning the earth gave forth all kinds of herbage and verdant sheen about the hills and over all the plains; the flowery meadows glittered with the bright green hue, and next in order to the different trees was given a strong and emulous desire of growing up into the air with full unbridled powers. (Bailey)
For he has not only used the term pleasure, but stated clearly what he meant by it. 'Taste,' he says, 'and embraces and spectacles and music and the shapes of objects fitted to give a pleasant impression to the eyes.'
These medicines we have put fully to the test; for we have dispelled the fears that grip us without justification, and, as for pains, those that are groundless we have completely excised, while those that are natural we have reduced to an absolute minimum, making their magnitude minute.
- Page scan: Diogenes of Oinoanda, Fragment 3 (tr. Smith)
[Metrodorus, Epicurus's closest colleague, affirms both static and kinetic pleasure as genuine pleasure, in the same passage in which Epicurus distinguishes his own view from the Cyrenaics.]
Thus Pleasure being conceived both as that species which consists in motion and that which is a state of rest.
3. Happiness Is An Emergent Property Of The Well-Lived Life -- Not A Sum Of Pleasures
One of the deepest insights in Epicurean ethics -- and one directly connected to the physical doctrine of emergence discussed in A-8 -- is that happiness (/eudaimonia/) is not the arithmetic sum of individual pleasant experiences. It is a qualitatively different condition that emerges from a life organized in the right way, just as the sweetness of honey is a real property of the compound that is absent from any individual atom composing it.
This distinction matters enormously in practice. If happiness were simply accumulated pleasure minus accumulated pain, then the pursuit of a happy life would be the pursuit of more and more pleasurable experiences, with each pleasant moment adding to a running total. On this picture, a person with access to more pleasures would necessarily be happier, more time would always be better, and the loss of any pleasure would always be a loss of happiness. None of this is what Epicurus actually taught.
Epicurus held instead that a life organized around the correct understanding of what genuinely matters -- with natural desires satisfied, groundless fears dissolved by correct understanding of nature, genuine friendships cultivated, and the philosophical clarity to distinguish real goods from empty ones -- produces a condition of happiness that no individual experience, however intense, can match or produce on its own. This is the meaning of the full cup metaphor: not a cup containing more and more liquid, but a cup from which something qualitatively different flows -- a life full in the sense of being genuinely complete, not merely accumulated.
This also explains the famous Epicurean claim that the sage can be happy even on the rack. This is not masochism or mere bravado. It reflects the genuine Epicurean insight that the organization of a life -- the philosophical understanding, the genuine friendships, the freedom from groundless fear -- constitutes a happiness robust enough to persist even when individual moments are painful, just as a living creature remains alive even when individual atoms are displaced. The individual experience is not the whole; the whole has properties that no individual experience contains.
Furthermore, as our article on complementarity establishes, the happiness that emerges is not generated by pleasure alone but by correct engagement with the full complementary range of natural human experience -- including the capacity for natural anger that protects what is loved, and the honest acknowledgment of genuine pain alongside the pursuit of genuine pleasure. A happiness achieved by numbing or suppressing the natural emotional range is not Epicurean happiness; it is a reduced and artificial substitute.
And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good. (Bailey)
Now we maintain that pleasure is not the pleasure of the profligate or that which depends on physical enjoyment, as some think who are ignorant of our doctrine... but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit. Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is prudence. Therefore prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy; from it spring all the other virtues, for it teaches that we cannot lead a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honor and justice. (Bailey)
The pleasure in the flesh is not increased when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied: and the limit as regards pleasure in the mind is begotten by the reasoned understanding of these very pleasures and of the emotions akin to them, which used to cause the greatest fear to the mind. (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Page scan: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 18 (tr. Bailey), same page also carries PD 15-17, 19-21
- Online text: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 18 -- Perseus Digital Library (Diogenes Laertius X, tr. Hicks, Loeb)
- Online text: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 18 -- Perseus Digital Library (Diogenes Laertius X, tr. Hicks, Loeb)
Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures, by reason, the limits of pleasure. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Happiness is a twofold notion: the highest, such as god enjoys, which is incapable of increase; and the happiness which is capable of addition and subtraction of pleasures. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Eudaimonia, happiness, is a property of a whole life, not of some portion of it.
The body rejoices just so long as it perceives a present pleasure; but the mind perceives both the present pleasure, along with the body, and foresees the one that is coming without allowing the past one to flow away. Hence the wise man will always have a constant supply of tightly-knit pleasures, since the anticipation of pleasures hoped for is united with the recollection of those already experienced. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Shortly I will speak about imprudence, but for the present about the virtues and pleasure. Now if the question at issue between these people [the Stoics] and ourselves involved examining 'what is the means of happiness?' and they wanted to say the virtues, as is in fact true, there would be no need to do anything except to agree with them and abandon the matter. But since the issue is not 'what is the means of happiness?' but what being happy is and what our nature ultimately desires, I affirm now and always, with a great shout to all Greeks and foreigners, pleasure is the end of the best lifestyle, while the virtues which are now being inappropriately fussed about by them are in no way the end, but the means to the end. (tr. Long & Sedley)
It was Athens of glorious name that first long ago bestowed on feeble mortals the produce of corn, and refurbished life, and established laws. It was Athens too that first bestowed soothing pleasures on life, when she gave birth to a man endowed with such insight, who long ago gave utterance to everything with truthful voice. When he saw that mortals were already supplied with almost everything that need demands for their livelihood, and that their life as far as possible was firm and secure, that men had abundance of power through wealth and social status and fame, yet that at home no one's heart was any less troubled, and that they were constantly wrecking their life, despite their intentions, under a compulsion to rage with aggressive complaints, he recognized that the flaw was there, caused by the utensil itself, and that by its flaw everything within was being befouled, whatever came in assembled from outside including beneficial things. He saw that the cause was partly the leaks and holes, which made it impossible for the utensil ever to be filled up, and partly its virtually polluting everything it had taken in with a foul taste. And so he purged people's hearts with his truthful words, and established the limit of desire and fear, and laid out the nature of the highest good to which we all strive, and indicated the way by whose narrow path we may press on towards it on a straight course. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt (same passage as the other "Lucretius 6.1-28" entry elsewhere in this file). Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
We are inquiring, then, into what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in Pleasure; Pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, and Pain the Chief Evil. (Rackham)
(See the page scan below.)
The problem before us then is, what is the climax and standard of things good... Epicurus places this standard in pleasure, which he lays down to be the supreme good, while pain is the supreme evil. Every creature, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil. (Reid)
Again, the truth that pleasure is the supreme good can be most easily apprehended from the following consideration. Let us imagine an individual in the enjoyment of pleasures great, numerous and constant, both mental and bodily, with no pain to thwart or threaten them; I ask what circumstances can we describe as more excellent than these or more desirable? When in addition we suppose that such a man is in no awe of the influence of the gods, and does not allow his past pleasures to slip away, but takes delight in constantly recalling them, what circumstance is it possible to add to these, to make his condition better? (Reid)
Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? (Rackham)
If then even the glory of the Virtues, on which all the other philosophers love to expatiate so eloquently, has in the last resort no meaning unless it be based on pleasure, whereas pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically attractive and alluring, it cannot be doubted that pleasure is the one supreme and final Good and that a life of happiness is nothing else than a life of pleasure. (Rackham)
(See the page scan below.)
We must heal our misfortunes by the grateful recollection of what has been and by the recognition that it is impossible to make undone what has been done. (Bailey)
There are many who pursue philosophy for the sake of wealth and fame, with the aim of procuring these either from private individuals or from kings. Well, it is not in order to gain any of the above-mentioned objectives that we have embarked upon the same undertaking, but so that we may enjoy happiness through attainment of the goal craved by nature. (Smith)
"Think of us, Mother, as living among such blessings as these and rejoicing always and let yourself feel uplifted at what we are doing. Be sparing, however, of the parcels, I implore you, which you persist in sending us, for it is not my wish that you should lack anything in order that I may have an abundance, but rather that I may lack to the end that you may not. As a matter of fact, I am even faring bountifully in all things because of the money being sent regularly by my father and by friends and especially because of the nine minas which Cleon has lately sent. There is consequently no sense in each of you worrying yourself separately on my account but you should rather be sharing one with the other (your common grounds for contentment)." (DeWitt)
[Note: in M.F. Smith's later complete edition (the master source used for this project's Oinoanda clips), this letter is renumbered Fragment 126 ("Letter to Mother (2)"), not Fragment 64.]
4. The Role of Philosophy
As explained by Lucretius, understanding does not come through observation alone - the simple sight of daylight - but through the study of nature based on observation. The pursuit of philosophy is both pleasurable in itself and essential for happy living. As the the cetnral importance of the study of natural philosophy in particular, see C-12.
Let no one either delay philosophizing when young, or weary of philosophizing when old. For no one is under-age or over-age for health of the soul. To say either that the time is not yet ripe for philosophizing, or that the time for philosophizing has gone by, is like saying that the time for happiness either has not arrived or is no more. So both young and old must philosophize -- the young man so that as he ages he can be made young by his goods, through his thankfulness for things past, the old man so that he can be at once young and aged, through his fearlessness towards things future, Therefore we must rehearse the things which produce happiness, seeing that when happiness is present we have everything, while when it is absent the one aim of our actions is to have it. (tr. Long & Sedley)
In other pursuits the reward comes at the end and is hard won. But in philosophy enjoyment keeps pace with knowledge. It is not learning followed by entertainment, but learning and entertainment at the same time. (tr. Long & Sedley)
I would rather speak with the frankness of a natural philosopher, and reveal the things which are expedient to all mankind, even if no one is going to understand me, than assent to the received opinions and reap the adulation lavishly bestowed by the multitude. (tr. Long & Sedley)
We should laugh, philosophize, and handle our household affairs and other personal matters, all at the same time, and never cease making the utterances which stem from correct philosophy. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Natural philosophy does not make people boastful and loud-mouthed, nor flaunters of culture, the thing so hotly competed for among the multitude, but modest and self-sufficient, and proud at their own goods, not at those of their circumstances. (tr. Long & Sedley)
One should not pretend to philosophize, but actually philosophize. For what we need is not the semblance of health, but real health. (tr. Long & Sedley)
(1) When human life lay foul to see and groveling upon the ground, crushed by the weight of Religion, who displayed her head from the regions of heaven, lowering over mortals with horrible aspect, (2) a man of Greece dared first to raise his mortal eyes against her, first to make a stand against her; for neither fables of the gods could quell him, nor thunderbolts, nor heaven with menacing roar, but all the more they goaded the eager courage of his soul to long to be the first to burst through the close-set bolts of nature's gates. (3) Therefore his vigorous mind won through, and he passed on far beyond the fiery walls of the world, and in mind and spirit traversed the boundless universe; (4) whence returning victorious he reports to us what can arise, what cannot, and by what principle each thing has its powers limited and its deep-set boundary stone. (5) Therefore Religion is now in turn cast down and trampled underfoot, while we by the victory are exalted high as heaven. (tr. Long & Sedley)
But nothing is more welcome than to occupy the heights effectively fortified by the teaching of the wise, tranquil sanctuaries from which you can look down upon others and see them wandering all abroad and going astray in their search for the path of life, competing in talent, contending in rank, striving night and day by extraordinary effort to rise to the height of power and gain possession of the world. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage (Book II opening) in Bailey's translation.]
In his letter to Pythocles Epicurus writes: 'My fortunate friend, hoist your sail and steer clear of ail culture.' (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Quoting Epicurus] 'Empty are the words of that philosopher who offers therapy for no human suffering. For just as there is no use in medical expertise if it does not give therapy for bodily diseases, so too there is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the suffering of the soul.' (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Page scan: Porphyry, To Marcella 31 (tr. Zimmern, 1896)
[Quoting Epicurus] 'I congratulate you, Apelles, for embarking on philosophy while still untainted by any culture.' (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Page scan: Athenaeus, Deipnosophists XIII.588A (tr. Yonge, Bohn, 1854) -- Yonge's rendering does not name the addressee "Apelles" explicitly ("I praise and congratulate you, my young man..."), but is the same passage
- Online text: Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 588A (tr. Yonge, 1854) -- Perseus Digital Library, search Book XIII for the passage (Casaubon page range approximate)
Epicurus used to say that philosophy is an activity which by arguments and discussions brings about the happy life. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Epicurus in his Problems declares that the wise man is a theatre-lover, who gets more joy than anyone else from festival concerts and shows. Yet he allows no place, even at table, for issues of musical theory or for literary-critical questions. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: tr. Goodwin (1874), Against Epicurean Happiness ("Pleasure Not Attainable"), full surrounding context. Below: the same passage as excerpted by Long & Sedley.]
- Page scan: Plutarch, Against Epicurean Happiness 1095c (tr. Goodwin, 1874)
- Page scan: Plutarch, Against Epicurean Happiness 1095c (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Online text: Plutarch, That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible (tr. Goodwin, 1874) -- Perseus Digital Library (same translation used for this project's citation clips; search page for exact passage)
You must understand that whether the discourse be long or short it tends to the same end. (Bailey)
The veneration of the Wise man is a great blessing to those who venerate him. (Bailey)
Epicurus' life when compared to other men's in respect of gentleness and self-sufficiency might be thought a mere legend. (Bailey)
In a philosophical discussion he who is worsted gains more in proportion as he learns more. (Bailey)
Now, since the remedies of the inscription reach a larger number of people, I wished to use this stoa to advertise publicly the medicines that bring salvation. Having already reached the sunset of my life, being almost on the verge of departure from the world on account of old age, I wanted, before being overtaken by death, to compose a fine anthem to celebrate the fullness of pleasure. But, as I have said before, the majority of people suffer from a common disease, as in a plague, with their false notions about things, and their number is increasing, for in mutual emulation they catch the disease from one another, like sheep; moreover, it is right to help also generations to come, for they too belong to us, though they are still unborn, and, besides, love of humanity prompts us to aid also the foreigners who come here. (Smith)
- Page scan: Diogenes of Oinoanda, Fragment 3 (tr. Smith)
Forgetting the good that has been he has become old this very day. (Bailey)
/This collection is organized for study and reference. Citations from Diogenes Laertius Book X and additional Lucretius references to be added./
[Epicurus's hostility to the "liberal arts" was not hostility to education: he held that the wise must be able to read and write.]
And amongst them we must place Epicurus, although he seems to be bitterly hostile to the Professors of Arts and Sciences; certainly in his book On Gifts and Gratitude he definitely tries to prove that it is necessary for the wise to learn letters. (Bury)