Pleasure and Pain
The feelings that accompany attaining or losing what we desire, and their place in the good life.
Works to read
- Philebus by Plato, c. 350 BC · Great Books
- Essays and Aphorisms by Arthur Schopenhauer, 1851
- On Christian Doctrine by Augustine of Hippo, 396-427 · Great Books
- The Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant, 1790 · Great Books
- Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1886 · Great Books
- Selected Sermons by John Calvin, 1549-1564
- The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, 1692
- The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer, 1818 (expanded 1844)
- Washington Square by Henry James, 1880
- The Plague by Albert Camus, 1947
Passages
From the texts
Pleasure is, therefore, a necessary element in the best life, but it is not the whole of it nor the principal ingredient.
— Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics
One pleasure is greater than another if it is more unmixed with pain, or more lasting.
— Aristotle, Rhetoric
Verified quotations
No verified quotation in the library contains this idea's key words yet.
Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: pleasure, pain, suffering, delight. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.