Letter to Menoeceus

​The wise man neither refuses to live nor fears not living; for living is not offensive to him, nor does he think that not living is any evil. And just as he chooses not the greatest quantity of food but the most pleasant, so he enjoys not the longest time but the most pleasant. He who counsels the young man to live well and the old man to make a good end is foolish, not only because of the desirability of life, but also because the practice of living well and of dying well is the same. Much worse, too, is he who says: “It is good not to be born, but once born, to pass through the gates of Hades as quickly as possible.”

​For if he says this from conviction, why does he not depart from life? For this is ready at hand for him, if indeed it had been firmly resolved by him. But if he says it in jest, he is foolish in matters that do not admit of it. We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither expect it as surely to come nor despair of it as surely not to come. We must consider that of desires some are natural, others vain; 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 trouble, and others for life itself.

​For an unerring contemplation of these knows how to refer every choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the tranquility of the soul, since this is the end of a blessed life. For we do everything for the sake of this, that we may feel neither pain nor fear. And when once this state is achieved in us, all the storm of the soul is dissolved, the living being having no need to go as if toward something lacking, nor to seek something else by which the good of the soul and body will be fulfilled. For we have need of pleasure then, when we feel pain from the absence of pleasure; but when we do not feel pain, we no longer need pleasure.

​And for this reason we say that pleasure is the beginning and end of a blessed life. For we recognize this as the first and innate good, and from this we begin every choice and avoidance, and to this we return, judging every good by using feeling as a rule. And since this is the first and innate good, for this reason we do not choose every pleasure, but there are times when we pass over many pleasures, when a greater annoyance follows from them; and we consider many pains superior to pleasures, when a greater pleasure follows for us after we have endured the pains for a long time. Every pleasure, therefore, because of having a natural affinity to us, is a good, but not every pleasure is to be chosen; just as every pain is an evil, yet not every pain is always to be avoided.

​However, it is fitting to judge all these things by measuring them together and by looking at what is advantageous and what is disadvantageous. For we treat the good at some times as an evil, and conversely the evil as a good. And we regard self-sufficiency as a great good, not that we may always use only a little, but so that, if we do not have much, we may be satisfied with a little, being genuinely convinced that those who least need luxury enjoy it most pleasantly, and that everything natural is easily procured, while that which is vain is difficult to procure, and that simple dishes bring equal pleasure to a luxurious diet,