On the Good Life

Consequently, to take something away from someone else - to profit by another’s loss - is more unnatural than death, or destitution, or pain, or any other physical or external blow. To

Consequently, to take something away from someone else - to profit by another’s loss - is more unnatural than death, or destitution, or pain, or any other physical or external blow.

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Consequently, to take something away from someone else - to profit by another’s loss - is more unnatural than death

Consequently, to take something away from someone else - to profit by another’s loss - is more unnatural than death, or destitution, or pain, or any other physical or external blow

Damocles thought himself a truly fortunate person. But in the midst of all this splendour, directly above the neck of the happy man, Dionysius arranged that a gleaming sword should be suspended from the ceiling, to which it was attached by a horsehair

To men immersed day and night in these meditations comes understanding of the truth pronounced by the god at Delphi, that the mind should know itself; and there comes also the perception of its union with the divine mind, the source of its inexhaustible joy

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moral goodness is enough by itself to create a happy life

To suppose that these are cases in which custom has conquered nature, so that the Indians no longer feel frost and fire, would be an erroneous conclusion because nature can never be overcome.

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belief of the Stoics on this subject is simple. The supreme good, according to them, is to live according to nature, and in harmony with nature

The belief of the Stoics on this subject is simple. The supreme good, according to them, is to live according to nature, and in harmony with nature

There is the idea of Hierony¬ mus that the only thing which is good is the absence of pain

There is the attitude of Epicurus that nothing is good except pleasure

Greetings from Anacharsis to Hanno. My clothing is a Scythian mantle, my shoes are the hard soles of my feet, my bed is the earth, my food is only seasoned by hunger - and I eat nothing but milk and cheese and meat. Come and visit me, and you will find me at peace. You want to give me something. But give it to your fellow-citizens instead, or let the immortal gods have

Greetings from Anacharsis to Hanno. My clothing is a Scythian mantle, my shoes are the hard soles of my feet, my bed is the earth, my food is only seasoned by hunger - and I eat nothing but milk and cheese and meat. Come and visit me, and you will find me at peace. You want to give me something. But give it to your fellow-citizens instead, or let the immortal gods have it

Epicurus’s whole theory ofpleasure is based on the idea that the reason why this is always attractive and desirable is pre¬ cisely because it is pleasure, and the reason why pain cannot fail to be undesirable is because it is pain. This means that if a man has any sense he will take care to weigh the pros and cons, avoiding pleasure if the pain it involves seems likely to predominate, and accepting pain if the inherent pleasure is going to outweigh the disadvantages

There is also a tradi¬ tion about Socrates. He liked walking, it is recorded, until a late hour ofthe evening, and when someone asked him why he did this he said he was trying to work up an appetite for his dinner

And what the contrast demonstrates is that the true satisfaction to be derived from food comes not from repletion but from appetite - the people who run hardest after pleasure are the least likely to catch what they are after

Flutists and harpists do not adjust their melody or rhythm according to the taste of the multitude, they base it on what suits themselves. Why, then, should the wise man, who is the practitioner of a far greater art, follow the pleasure of the crowd, instead of pursuing the truth without regard to popular pressures

Flutists and harpists do not adjust their melody or rhythm according to the taste of the multitude, they base it on what suits themselves. Why, then, should the wise man, who is the practitioner of a far greater art, follow the pleasure of the crowd, instead of pursuing the truth without regard to popular pressures?

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What a lot of trouble one avoids if one refuses to have anything to do with the common herd! To have no job, to devote one’s time to literature, is the most wonderful thing in the world. And by literature, I mean the works which give us an opportunity to understand the universe and nature in all its 1. Cicero is echoing a remark which Socrates was said to have made to Alcibiades. 2. Heraclitus of Ephesus, c.500 bc. The Romans believed that their laws ofthe Twelve Tables (attributed to 451-450 bc) were partly derived from Hermodorus, while he was in exile in Italy. 3. The Athenian statesman, exiled by ostracism in 483-482 bc. 107

What a lot of trouble one avoids if one refuses to have anything to do with the common herd! To have no job, to devote one’s time to literature, is the most wonderful thing in the world.

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When Socrates was asked which country he belonged to, he replied, ‘The world’; for he regarded himself as an inhabitant and citizen of every part of it

That was the point of Epicurus’s bold assertion that good always predominates in the wise man because he never has any lack of pleasures. And that, again, is how Epicurus, like the rest, reaches the conclusion we are after, that the wise man is always happy

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A man who has the ability to commune with himself does not feel the slightest need for anyone else’s conversation

let him drink, or let him go

For surely to he wise is the most desirable thing in all the world. It is quite impossible to imagine anything better, or more becoming for a human being, or more appropriate to his essential nature. That is why the people who try to reach this goal are called philosophers, because that is precisely what philosophy means, the love of wisdom

But the implica¬ tion that something can be right without being expedient, “or expedient without being rigHt, is the most pernicious

But the implica¬ tion that something can be right without being expedient, “or expedient without being rigHt, is the most pernicious error thaFcould”possibly be introHut hTriruFTHaiTextremely reputable philosophers, reasoning

But the implica¬ tion that something can be right without being expedient, “or expedient without being rigHt, is the most pernicious error thaFcould”possibly be introHut hTriruFTHaiTextremely reputable philosophers,

This brings me back tomoral goodness. It may be held to fall into three subdivisions. The first is the ability to distinguish the trutfi from fr^y, and to understand the relationships between one phenomenon and another and the causes and consequences of each one. The second category is the ability to restrain _the^assions (pathe in Greek) and to make the 1} V appetites (hormai) amenable to reason. The third, which is relevant here, is the capacity to behave considerately and under- “N standinglyJa our -asseeiations with other people.2 By doing so we shall secure their cooperation