Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​For an unwavering contemplation of these things 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 the blessed life. For it is for the sake of this that we do everything, in order that we may feel neither pain nor fear; and when once this condition arises concerning us, all the storm of the soul is dissolved, the living creature having no need to advance as if toward something lacking and to seek something else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. For then we have need of pleasure, when from the absence of pleasure we feel pain; 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 the blessed life;

​for we have recognized this as the primary and congenital good, and from this we begin every choice and avoidance, and to this we arrive, judging every good using feeling as the criterion. And since this is the primary and innate good, for this reason we do not choose every pleasure, but there are times when we pass over many pleasures, whenever greater trouble follows for us from them; and we regard many pains as better than pleasures, whenever a greater pleasure attends us after enduring the pains for a long time. Every pleasure, then, because it has a nature that is congenial, is a good, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen; just as every pain too is an evil, yet not every pain is always of a nature to be avoided.

​It is fitting, however, to judge all these things by measuring them against one another and by looking to advantages and disadvantages; for we treat the good at certain times as an evil, and conversely the evil as a good. And we consider self-sufficiency to be a great good, not that we may always use few things, but so that, if we do not possess many things, we may be content with the few, genuinely convinced that those who least need luxury enjoy it most pleasantly, and that everything that is natural is easy to procure, while what is empty is difficult to procure. For simple broths bring a pleasure equal to a luxurious diet, whenever the pain from want is once removed;

​and barley cake and water provide the highest pleasure, whenever one who is in want consumes them. Becoming accustomed, then, to simple and non-luxurious diets is both conducive to health and makes a person resolute toward the necessary uses of life, and disposes us in a better condition when we approach luxuries at intervals, and renders us fearless in the face of fortune. "When, therefore, we say that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of the profligate and those consisting in sensual enjoyment, as some who are ignorant and do not agree, or who interpret badly, suppose, but rather not to feel pain in the body and not to be troubled in the soul.

​For neither continuous drinking bouts and revels, nor the enjoyments of boys and women, nor of fish and the other things which a luxurious table bears, produce the pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the causes of every choice and avoidance, and driving out the opinions from which the greatest tumult occupies souls. And of all these things the beginning and the greatest good is practical wisdom; wherefore practical wisdom is something more precious even than philosophy, from which all the remaining virtues have naturally sprung, teaching that it is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently and honorably and justly, nor to live prudently and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. For the virtues have grown up together with living pleasantly, and living pleasantly is inseparable from them.