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Full Idea
When we say that pleasure is the chief good, we do not mean debauchery, but freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from confusion…. which requires sober contemplation.
Gist of Idea
True pleasure is not debauchery, but freedom from physical and mental pain
Source
Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus [c.291 BCE], 131), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.27
Book Ref
Diogenes Laertius: 'Diogenes Laertius', ed/tr. Yonge,C.D. [Henry G. Bohn 1853], p.471
A Reaction
I'm not clear how lack of pain and confusion counts as pleasure. Also the concepts of debauchery held by the puritan and the sybarite are wildly different.
| 385 | Some of the pleasures and pains we feel are false [Plato] |
| 4376 | Pleasure and pain are perceptions of things as good or bad [Aristotle] |
| 4374 | For Aristotle, pleasure is the perception of particulars as valuable [Achtenberg on Aristotle] |
| 1835 | True pleasure is not debauchery, but freedom from physical and mental pain [Epicurus] |
| 4847 | Pleasure is a passive state in which the mind increases in perfection [Spinoza] |
| 12962 | Pleasure is a sense of perfection [Leibniz] |
| 5049 | Intelligent pleasure is the perception of beauty, order and perfection [Leibniz] |
| 7197 | Pleasure needs dissatisfaction, boundaries and resistances [Nietzsche] |
| 4550 | Pleasure and pain are mere epiphenomena, and achievement requires that one desire both [Nietzsche] |
| 9230 | People want to fulfill their desires, but also for their desires to be sustained [Frankfurt] |