76 /-38 to /-47
books to all, male and female alike, showing off your wisdom, and don't
give written instructions for your burial.Plutarch Against Colotes 1117a (116 U, 42 A) [1-39]
(1117a) ... In the letter to Anaxarchus he wrote as follows: "I summon
you to constant pleasures, and not to virtues, which provide [only] empty,
pointless, and disturbing expectations of rewards."Plutarch A Pleasant Life llOlab (120 U) [1-40]
(llOla) ... They argue with those who eliminate pains and tears and
lamentations for the deaths of friends, and they say that the kind of
freedom from pain which amounts to insensitivity^32 is the result of another
and greater bad thing, savagery or an unadulterated lust for fame and
madness, and that this is the reason why it is better to suffer something
and experience pain, and by Zeus even to weep copiously, swoon and
[experience] all the sentiment which they indulge in and [even] write
about, and so come to seem tender and given to friendship. (llOlb) For
Epicurus said this in lots of other places and he also [said it] about the
death ofHegesianax when he wrote to his father Dositheus and to Pyrson,
the brother of the deceased. For recently I chanced to go through his
letters.Letter to Idomeneus: Diogenes Laertius 10.22
(138 U, 52 A)[1-41]"I write this to you while experiencing a blessedly happy day, and at
the same time the last day of my life. Urinary blockages and dysenteric
discomforts afflict me which could not be surpassed for their intensity.
But against all these things are ranged the joy in my soul produced by
the recollection of the discussions we have had. Please take care of the
children of Metrodorus in a manner worthy of the good disposition you
have had since adolescence towards me and towards philosophy."
Seneca Letters on Ethics 22.5-6 (133 U, 56 A) [1-42]
Read ... the letter of Epicurus which is entitled "To Idomeneus"; he
requests Idomeneus that he flee and hurry as much as he can, before
some greater force has a chance to intervene and take away his freedom
to 'retreat'. 6. The same man also adds that nothing should be undertaken
except when it can be undertaken fittingly and on a good occasion. But- The term used is apathes, the Stoic word for freedom from destructive passions.