# Travels With Epicurus  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Daniel Klein]] - Full Title:: Travels With Epicurus - Category: #books ## Highlights > Epicurus’s answer, after many years of deep thought, was that the best possible life one could live is a happy one, a life filled with pleasure. ([Location 180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=180)) > For one thing, he took great pleasure in food he had grown himself—that was part of the gratification of eating the lentils. For another, he had a Zen-like attitude about his senses: if he fully engaged in tasting the lentils, he would experience all the subtle delights of their flavor, delights that rival those of more extravagantly spiced fare. And another of this dish’s virtues was that it was a snap to prepare. Epicurus was not into tedious, mindless work like, say, dripping mastiha onto a slow-roasting pheasant. ([Location 190](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=190)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > “It is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.” ([Location 200](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=200)) > “Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure. The caretaker of that abode, a kindly host, will be ready for you; he will welcome you with bread, and serve you water also in abundance, with these words: ‘Have you not been well entertained? This garden does not whet your appetite, but quenches it.’” ([Location 203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=203)) > Epicureanism espoused and practiced a radical egalitarianism of both gender and social class. ([Location 210](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=210)) > Roman poet Lucretius set down the basic Epicurean principles in his magnum opus, The Nature of Things. ([Location 214](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=214)) > “It is not the young man who should be considered fortunate but the old man who has lived well, because the young man in his prime wanders much by chance, vacillating in his beliefs, while the old man has docked in the harbor, having safeguarded his true happiness.” ([Location 219](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=219)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Epicurus is pointing to what the Zen Buddhists call the emptiness of “striving,” ([Location 224](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=224)) > One of my favorite of Epicurus’s aphorisms is: “Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” ([Location 256](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=256)) > Epicurus writes, “We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics,” ([Location 261](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=261)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Epicureans consider communal silence a hallmark of true friendship. ([Location 410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=410)) > “Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.” ([Location 414](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=414)) > “Before you eat or drink anything, carefully consider with whom you eat or drink rather than what you eat or drink, because eating without a friend is the life of the lion or the wolf.” ([Location 418](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=418)) > These days, in some circles of old folks, this recapitulation of complaints is known as “the organ recital,” ([Location 451](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=451)) > “Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not. The absence of life is not evil; death is no more alarming than the nothingness before birth.” ([Location 456](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=456)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Oscar Wilde: “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst.” ([Location 605](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=605)) > The contemporary wit Steven Wright makes a comparable point more succinctly: “Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.” ([Location 621](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=621)) > “We now have neurobiological evidence showing that with age comes wisdom and that as the brain gets older, it learns to better allocate its resources.” ([Location 832](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=832)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > In the second book of his Rhetoric, Aristotle, a dedicated curmudgeon on the subject of old folks, wrote: “They live by memory rather than by hope; for what is left to them of life is but little as compared with the long past; and hope is of the future, memory of the past. This, again, is the cause of their loquacity; they are continually talking of the past, because they enjoy remembering it.” ([Location 856](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=856)) > When we reminisce for our own private gratification, we usually do not seek out a fact-checker. What we are interested in is recalling an experience: how it felt to us, what it meant to us then, and what it means to us now. ([Location 913](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=913)) > Indeed the fact that I have this memory and attach significance to it matters more than its absolute, objective truth. ([Location 919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=919)) > Being and Nothingness, Sartre wrote: “There is a magic in recollection. . . . In remembering we seem to attain that impossible synthesis . . . that life yearns for.” ([Location 930](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=930)) > Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. —JEAN-PAUL SARTRE ([Location 972](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=972)) > Keats, saying, “Youth is beauty and beauty is youth.” ([Location 1001](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1001)) > Epicurus mapped out the sequence in which sex causes misery: it starts with lust, moves on to ardor, peaks with consummation, and then goes directly to jealousy or boredom or both. No comfort for Epicurus there. ([Location 1008](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1008)) > Wrote Aristotle: “Between man and wife friendship seems to exist by nature; for man is naturally inclined to form couples—even more than to form cities, inasmuch as the household is earlier and more necessary than the city.” ([Location 1145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1145)) > “The Myth of Sisyphus,” “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide”—is ([Location 1258](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1258)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Aristotle’s observation, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ([Location 1285](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1285)) > Confucian philosopher Mencius put the situation simply and eloquently when he wrote, “Life is what I want; yi [often translated as ‘meaningfulness’] is also what I want. If I cannot have both, I would rather take yi than life. On the one hand, though life is what I want, there is something I want more than life. That is why I do not cling to life at all cost. . . . In other words, there are things a person wants more than life and there are also things he or she loathes more than death.” ([Location 1404](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1404)) > “Life has carried some men with the greatest rapidity to the harbor, the harbor they were bound to reach even if they tarried on the way, while others it has fretted and harassed. To such a life, as you are aware, one should not always cling. For mere living is not a good, but living well is. Accordingly, the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can. . . . He always reflects concerning the quality, not the quantity, of his life. As soon as there are many events in his life that give him trouble and disturb his peace of mind, he sets himself free. . . . For no man can lose very much when but a driblet remains. It is not a question of dying earlier or later, but of dying well or ill. And dying well means escape from the danger of living ill.” ([Location 1409](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1409)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Note: Seneca > how do we know exactly when that point has been reached? The timing is tricky. We need to pull the plug before we cross the line into full-fledged dementia; ([Location 1423](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1423)) > Sam Harris puts it amusingly: “If I told you that I thought there was a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in my backyard, and you asked me, why do you think that? I’d say, this belief gives my life meaning, or my family draws a lot of joy from this belief, and we dig for this diamond every Sunday and we have this gigantic pit in our lawn. I would start to sound like a lunatic to you. You can’t believe there really is a diamond in your backyard because it gives your life meaning. If that’s possible, that’s self-deception that nobody wants.” ([Location 1531](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1531)) # Travels With Epicurus  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Daniel Klein]] - Full Title:: Travels With Epicurus - Category: #books ## Highlights > Epicurus’s answer, after many years of deep thought, was that the best possible life one could live is a happy one, a life filled with pleasure. ([Location 180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=180)) > For one thing, he took great pleasure in food he had grown himself—that was part of the gratification of eating the lentils. For another, he had a Zen-like attitude about his senses: if he fully engaged in tasting the lentils, he would experience all the subtle delights of their flavor, delights that rival those of more extravagantly spiced fare. And another of this dish’s virtues was that it was a snap to prepare. Epicurus was not into tedious, mindless work like, say, dripping mastiha onto a slow-roasting pheasant. ([Location 190](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=190)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > “It is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.” ([Location 200](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=200)) > “Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure. The caretaker of that abode, a kindly host, will be ready for you; he will welcome you with bread, and serve you water also in abundance, with these words: ‘Have you not been well entertained? This garden does not whet your appetite, but quenches it.’” ([Location 203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=203)) > Epicureanism espoused and practiced a radical egalitarianism of both gender and social class. ([Location 210](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=210)) > Roman poet Lucretius set down the basic Epicurean principles in his magnum opus, The Nature of Things. ([Location 214](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=214)) > “It is not the young man who should be considered fortunate but the old man who has lived well, because the young man in his prime wanders much by chance, vacillating in his beliefs, while the old man has docked in the harbor, having safeguarded his true happiness.” ([Location 219](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=219)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Epicurus is pointing to what the Zen Buddhists call the emptiness of “striving,” ([Location 224](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=224)) > One of my favorite of Epicurus’s aphorisms is: “Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” ([Location 256](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=256)) > Epicurus writes, “We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics,” ([Location 261](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=261)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Epicureans consider communal silence a hallmark of true friendship. ([Location 410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=410)) > “Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.” ([Location 414](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=414)) > “Before you eat or drink anything, carefully consider with whom you eat or drink rather than what you eat or drink, because eating without a friend is the life of the lion or the wolf.” ([Location 418](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=418)) > These days, in some circles of old folks, this recapitulation of complaints is known as “the organ recital,” ([Location 451](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=451)) > “Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not. The absence of life is not evil; death is no more alarming than the nothingness before birth.” ([Location 456](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=456)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Oscar Wilde: “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst.” ([Location 605](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=605)) > The contemporary wit Steven Wright makes a comparable point more succinctly: “Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.” ([Location 621](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=621)) > “We now have neurobiological evidence showing that with age comes wisdom and that as the brain gets older, it learns to better allocate its resources.” ([Location 832](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=832)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > In the second book of his Rhetoric, Aristotle, a dedicated curmudgeon on the subject of old folks, wrote: “They live by memory rather than by hope; for what is left to them of life is but little as compared with the long past; and hope is of the future, memory of the past. This, again, is the cause of their loquacity; they are continually talking of the past, because they enjoy remembering it.” ([Location 856](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=856)) > When we reminisce for our own private gratification, we usually do not seek out a fact-checker. What we are interested in is recalling an experience: how it felt to us, what it meant to us then, and what it means to us now. ([Location 913](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=913)) > Indeed the fact that I have this memory and attach significance to it matters more than its absolute, objective truth. ([Location 919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=919)) > Being and Nothingness, Sartre wrote: “There is a magic in recollection. . . . In remembering we seem to attain that impossible synthesis . . . that life yearns for.” ([Location 930](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=930)) > Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. —JEAN-PAUL SARTRE ([Location 972](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=972)) > Keats, saying, “Youth is beauty and beauty is youth.” ([Location 1001](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1001)) > Epicurus mapped out the sequence in which sex causes misery: it starts with lust, moves on to ardor, peaks with consummation, and then goes directly to jealousy or boredom or both. No comfort for Epicurus there. ([Location 1008](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1008)) > Wrote Aristotle: “Between man and wife friendship seems to exist by nature; for man is naturally inclined to form couples—even more than to form cities, inasmuch as the household is earlier and more necessary than the city.” ([Location 1145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1145)) > “The Myth of Sisyphus,” “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide”—is ([Location 1258](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1258)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Aristotle’s observation, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ([Location 1285](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1285)) > Confucian philosopher Mencius put the situation simply and eloquently when he wrote, “Life is what I want; yi [often translated as ‘meaningfulness’] is also what I want. If I cannot have both, I would rather take yi than life. On the one hand, though life is what I want, there is something I want more than life. That is why I do not cling to life at all cost. . . . In other words, there are things a person wants more than life and there are also things he or she loathes more than death.” ([Location 1404](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1404)) > “Life has carried some men with the greatest rapidity to the harbor, the harbor they were bound to reach even if they tarried on the way, while others it has fretted and harassed. To such a life, as you are aware, one should not always cling. For mere living is not a good, but living well is. Accordingly, the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can. . . . He always reflects concerning the quality, not the quantity, of his life. As soon as there are many events in his life that give him trouble and disturb his peace of mind, he sets himself free. . . . For no man can lose very much when but a driblet remains. It is not a question of dying earlier or later, but of dying well or ill. And dying well means escape from the danger of living ill.” ([Location 1409](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1409)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Note: Seneca > how do we know exactly when that point has been reached? The timing is tricky. We need to pull the plug before we cross the line into full-fledged dementia; ([Location 1423](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1423)) > Sam Harris puts it amusingly: “If I told you that I thought there was a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in my backyard, and you asked me, why do you think that? I’d say, this belief gives my life meaning, or my family draws a lot of joy from this belief, and we dig for this diamond every Sunday and we have this gigantic pit in our lawn. I would start to sound like a lunatic to you. You can’t believe there really is a diamond in your backyard because it gives your life meaning. If that’s possible, that’s self-deception that nobody wants.” ([Location 1531](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0087GJ208&location=1531))