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Full Idea
The surest road to happiness is not the path through rule nor through servitude, but through liberty.
Gist of Idea
The road of freedom is the surest route to happiness
Source
report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 2.1.9
Book Ref
Xenophon: 'Conversations of Socrates', ed/tr. Waterfield,R/Tredennick,H. [Penguin 1990], p.103
A Reaction
The great anarchist slogan. Personally I don't believe it, because I agree a little with Hobbes that authority is required to make cooperation flourish, and that is essential for full happiness. If I were a slave, I would agree with Aristippus.
| 1749 | If all laws were abolished, philosophers would still live as they do now [Aristippus elder] |
| 1755 | Errors result from external influence, and should be corrected, not hated [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3558 | Only the Cyrenaics reject the idea of a final moral end [Aristippus elder, by Annas] |
| 5835 | The road of freedom is the surest route to happiness [Aristippus elder, by Xenophon] |
| 3018 | People who object to extravagant pleasures just love money [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1751 | Pleasure is the good, because we always seek it, it satisfies us, and its opposite is the most avoidable thing [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius] |