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Single Idea 14059
[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness
]
Full Idea
It is not drinking bouts or enjoying boys and women or consuming fish which produces the pleasant life, but sober calculation which searches out reasons for every choice, and drives out opinions which produce turmoil of the soul.
Gist of Idea
The best life is not sensuality, but rational choice and healthy opinion
Source
Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus [c.291 BCE], 132)
Book Ref
Epicurus: 'The Epicurus Reader', ed/tr. Inwood,B. /Gerson,L. [Hackett 1994], p.31
A Reaction
This more or less sums up what I would call the philosophical life. Spontaneity is good, and some pleasures are killed by excessive thought, but on the whole actions are always better if good reasons are found, and error brings chaos.
The
32 ideas
with the same theme
[how can happiness be achieved?]:
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5835
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The road of freedom is the surest route to happiness
[Aristippus elder, by Xenophon]
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332
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One should exercise both the mind and the body, to avoid imbalance
[Plato]
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17947
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Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life
[Plato, by Nehamas]
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7812
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For peace of mind, you need self-government, indifference and independence
[Diogenes of Sin.]
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5139
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If happiness can be achieved by study and effort, then it is open to anyone who is not corrupt
[Aristotle]
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39
|
Happiness needs total goodness and a complete life
[Aristotle]
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5144
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Happiness is activity in accordance with complete virtue, for a whole life, with adequate external goods
[Aristotle]
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100
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The happy life is in accordance with goodness, which implies seriousness
[Aristotle]
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106
|
The best life is that of the intellect, since that is in the fullest sense the man
[Aristotle]
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5865
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Happiness involves three things, of which the greatest is either wisdom, virtue, or pleasure
[Aristotle]
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5850
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Happiness is composed of a catalogue of internal and external benefits
[Aristotle]
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14059
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The best life is not sensuality, but rational choice and healthy opinion
[Epicurus]
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20865
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Happiness is the end and goal, achieved by living virtuously, in agreement, and according to nature
[Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
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22756
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If a desire is itself desirable, then we shouldn't desire it, as achieving it destroys it
[Sext.Empiricus]
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6678
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We live for the past or future, and so are never happy in the present
[Pascal]
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7917
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Realising our future misery is a kind of happiness
[Rochefoucauld]
|
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4860
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Man's highest happiness consists of perfecting his understanding, or reason
[Spinoza]
|
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5019
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Supreme human happiness is the greatest possible increase of his perfection
[Leibniz]
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7538
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The happiest people link the beginning and end of life
[Goethe]
|
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21371
|
We can never attain happiness while our will is pursuing desires
[Schopenhauer]
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7076
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Mill wondered if he would be happy if all his aims were realised, and answered no
[Mill, by Critchley]
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24111
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Happiness is the active equilibrium of our drives
[Nietzsche]
|
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14849
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We can only achieve happy moments, not happy eras
[Nietzsche]
|
|
7159
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The only happiness is happiness with illusion
[Nietzsche]
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14884
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The shortest path to happiness is forgetfulness, the path of animals (but of little value)
[Nietzsche]
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5655
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Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values
[Bradley, by Scruton]
|
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20180
|
A happy and joyous life must largely be a quiet life
[Russell]
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21743
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In wartime, happiness is hating the enemy, because it gives the war a purpose
[Russell]
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9227
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We might not choose a very moral life, if the character or constitution was deficient
[Frankfurt]
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4650
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The quality of a life is not altogether independent of its length
[Glover]
|
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20154
|
Control is the key to well-being
[Kekes]
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|
20157
|
Well-being needs correct attitudes and well-ordered commitments to local values
[Kekes]
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