es took a greater
liberty, like a Cynic, when Alexander asked him if he wanted anything:
"Just at present," said he, "I wish that you would stand a little out of
the line between me and the sun," for Alexander was hindering him from
sunning himself. And indeed this very man used to maintain how much he
surpassed the Persian king, in his manner of life and fortune; for that he
himself was in want of nothing, while the other never had enough; and that
he had no inclination for those pleasures of which the other could never
get enough to satisfy himself: and that the other could never obtain his.

XXXIII. You see, I imagine, how Epicurus has divided his kinds of desires,
not very acutely perhaps, but yet usefully: saying, that they are "partly
natural and necessary; partly natural, but not necessary; partly neither.
That those which are necessary may be supplied almost for nothing; for
that the things which nature requires are easily obtained." As to the
second kind of desires, his opinion is, that any one may easily either
enjoy or go without them. And with regard to the third, since they are
utterly frivolous, being neither allied to necessity nor nature, he thinks
that they should be entirely rooted out. On this topic a great many
arguments are adduced by the Epicureans; and those pleasures which they do
not despise in a body, they disparage one by one, and seem rather for
lessening the number of them: for as to wanton pleasures, on which subject
they say a great deal, these, say they, are easy, common, and within any
one's reach; and they think that if nature requires them, they are not to
be estimated by birth, condition, or rank, but by shape, age, and person:
and that it is by no means difficult to refrain from them, should health,
duty, or reputation require it; but that pleasures of this kind may be
desirable, where they are attended with no inconvenience, but can never be
of any use. And the assertions which Epicurus makes with respect to the
whole of pleasure, are such as show his opinion to be that pleasure is
always desirable, and to be pursued merely because it is pleasure; and for
the same reason pain is to be avoided, because it is pain. So that a wise
man will always adopt such a system of counterbalancing as to do himself
the justice to avoid pleasure, should pain ensue from it in too great a
proportion; and will submit to pain, provided the effects of it are to
produce a greater pleasure: so that all pleas