Vitae philosophorum

And we choose the virtues too on account of pleasure and not for their own sake, as we take medicine for the sake of health. So too in the twentieth book of his Epilecta says Diogenes, who also calls education (ἀγωγή) recreation (διαγωγή). Epicurus describes virtue as the sine qua non of pleasure, i.e. the one thing without which pleasure cannot be, everything else, food, for instance, being separable, i.e. not indispensable to pleasure.

Come, then, let me set the seal, so to say, on my entire work as well as on this philosopher’s life by citing his Sovran Maxims,[*](This collection of forty of the most important articles of faith in the Epicurean creed was famous in antiquity. It consists of extracts from the voluminous writings of Epicurus, and may have been put together by a faithful disciple. On the other hand, Epicurus laid great stress (§§35, 36) on epitomes of his doctrine being committed to memory; so that his passion for personal direction and supervision of the studies of his pupils may have induced him to furnish them with such an indispensable catechism.) therewith bringing the whole work to a close and making the end of it to coincide with the beginning of happiness.