Hellenistic Philosophy Introductory

Short Fragments and Testimonia from Known Works

From On the Goal

Plutarch A Pleasant Life 1089d (68 U,

22 [3] A)

75

[I-36]

... "For the stable condition (katastema) of the flesh and the reliable

expectation concerning this contains the highest and most secure joy, for

those who are able to reason it out."

Athenaeus Deipnosophists 12, 546ef (67 U,

22 [1, 4] A)

[I-37]

Not only Aristippus and his followers, but also Epicurus and his

welcomed kinetic pleasure; and I will mention what follows, to avoid

speaking of the "storms" [of passion] and the "delicacies" which Epicurus

often cites, and the "titillations" and the "stimuli" which he mentions

in his On the Goal. For he says: "For I at least do not even know what

I should conceive the good to be, if I eliminate the pleasures of taste,

and eliminate the pleasures of sex, and eliminate the pleasures oflistening,

and eliminate the pleasant motions caused in our vision by a visible form."

... And in his On the Goal he again [says]: "One must honour the

noble, and the virtues and things like that, ifthey produce pleasure. But

if they do not, one must bid them goodbye."

From the Symposium:

See I-29, 1109e-1110b above.

From Against Theophrastus:

See I-29, lllOcd above.

Fragments of Epicurus' Letters

Plutarch On Living the Inconspicuous Life

1128f-1129a (106-7 U, 98 A)

[I-38]

(1128£) Moreover, if you advise good men to be inconspicuous and to
be unknown ... give yourself [Epicurus] the same advice first. Don't
write to your friends in Asia, don't address the visitors from Egypt,
(1129a) don't keep watch over the youths in Lampsacus, don't send