Short Fragments and Testimonia from Uncertain Works 99
good, don't you think that they are using the soul as a kind of decanter
for the body and that they suppose that by pouring pleasure, like wine,
from a broken-down and leaky container to this [new container] and
aging it [there] they are doing something more impressive and valuable?
Stobaeus Anthology 3.17.34 (vol. 3 p. 501
W-H; 422 U)[I-135]"We need pleasure when we are in pain because of its absence; but
when we are not in this condition, and are in a stable state of sense-
perception, then there is no need for pleasure. For it is not the needs of
nature which produce injustice from without, but the desire based on
groundless opinions."Plutarch A Pleasant Life 1091b ( 423 U) [I-136]
He says, "for unsurpassable joy is produced by comparison with a
great bad thing which one has escaped; and this is the nature of the
good, if one applies [one's intellect] properly and then takes a firm stand,
but does not stroll around babbling emptily about the good."Plutarch A Pleasant Life 1099d (436 U) [I-137]
As they say, remembering previous goods is the most important factor
contributing to a pleasant life.Aristocles, quoted by Eusebius at Prep. Ev.
14.21.3 (442 U)[I-138]It is better to endure these particular pains, so that we might experience
greater pleasures; and it is advantageous to refrain from these particular
pleasures so that we might not suffer from more burdensome pains.Porphyry On Abstinence 1.51 (463 U) [I-139]
Variations in one's nourishment cannot possibly dissolve the distur-
bances of the soul, and indeed cannot even increase the pleasure in the
flesh; for this too reaches its limit as soon as the removal of pain is achieved.Stobaeus Anthology 3.17.22 (vol. 3 p. 495
W-H; 469 U)[I-140]"I am grateful to blessed Nature, because she made what is necessary
easy to acquire and what is hard to acquire unnecessary."