[Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations by Marcus Tullius Cicero]@TWC D-Link book
Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations

BOOK III
23/51

But you are for bringing my thoughts over to pleasure.

What pleasures?
Pleasures of the body, I imagine, or such as are recollected or imagined on account of the body.

Is this all?
Do I explain your opinion rightly?
for your disciples are used to deny that we understand at all what Epicurus means.

This is what he says, and what that subtle fellow, old Zeno, who is one of the sharpest of them, used, when I was attending lectures at Athens, to enforce and talk so loudly of; saying that he alone was happy who could enjoy present pleasure, and who was at the same time persuaded that he should enjoy it without pain, either during the whole or the greatest part of his life; or if, should any pain interfere, if it was very sharp, then it must be short; should it be of longer continuance, it would have more of what was sweet than bitter in it; that whosoever reflected on these things would be happy, especially if satisfied with the good things which he had already enjoyed, and if he were without fear of death or of the Gods.
XVIII.

You have here a representation of a happy life according to Epicurus, in the words of Zeno, so that there is no room for contradiction in any point.


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