When we say pleasure is the goal, we do not mean the pleasures of the dissolute or of sensual indulgence, but freedom from bodily pain and mental disturbance.
Hou to zetein hedone alla to hedeos zen... hoi gar logismoi kai nephalion kai sophon bion gennosi.
Philosophers
Epicurus
Born on the island of Samos around 341 BCE, Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded the Garden school in Athens and declared pleasure the highest good. Yet his pleasure was not sensual indulgence but ataraxia — tranquility of mind achieved by eliminating pain and anxiety. Inheriting Democritus's atomism and introducing the 'swerve' of atoms to ground free will, he became a founding figure of Hellenistic practical philosophy.
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Epicurus's Other Quotes
Death is nothing to us; for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
Live unknown.
Bodily pain does not last without limit; intense pain is brief in duration.
The pleasant life is produced not by endless drinking and revelry but by sober reasoning.
Empty is the philosopher's argument that does not heal any human suffering.
Related Quotes
Death is nothing to us; for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
-- Epicurus
The pleasant life is produced not by endless drinking and revelry but by sober reasoning.
-- Epicurus
All the natural movements of the soul are governed by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace alone is the exception.
-- Simone Weil