The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

by Ward Farnsworth

10. Pleasures of the mind. The Stoics give their highest endorsement to the pleasures associated with understanding and wisdom, which might be enjoyed even immoderately without fear of recoil. Stoics regard the mind as the site and the source of true happiness. Those who rate pleasure as the supreme ideal hold that the Good is found by the senses; but we Stoics maintain that it is found by the understanding, and we assign it to the mind. Seneca, Epistles 124.2 It is the mind that makes us rich. It goes with us into exile; and in the most untamed wilderness, when it has found all that the body needs to be sustained, it relishes the enjoyment of its many own goods. Seneca, Consolation to Helvia 11.5 It shows a lack of natural talent to spend much time on bodily activities, as by being excessive in exercise, excessive in eating and drinking, excessive in emptying the bowels and in copulating. These things should be done incidentally, and our attention should be devoted to the mind. Epictetus, Enchiridion 41