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Full Idea
When anyone's soul feels a keen pleasure or pain it cannot help supposing that whatever causes the most violent emotion is the plainest and truest reality - which it is not.
Gist of Idea
It is a mistake to think that the most violent pleasure or pain is therefore the truest reality
Source
Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 084c)
Book Ref
Plato: 'The Last Days of Socrates', ed/tr. Tredennick,Hugh [Penguin 1969], p.136
A Reaction
Do people think that? Most people distinguish subjective from objective. Wounded soldiers are also aware of victory or defeat.
| 134 | Good and bad people seem to experience equal amounts of pleasure and pain [Plato] |
| 361 | It is a mistake to think that the most violent pleasure or pain is therefore the truest reality [Plato] |
| 386 | Intense pleasure and pain are not felt in a good body, but in a worthless one [Plato] |
| 328 | Everything that takes place naturally is pleasant [Plato] |
| 49 | Character is revealed by the pleasures and pains people feel [Aristotle] |
| 53 | Feeling inappropriate pleasure or pain affects conduct, and is central to morality [Aristotle] |
| 3563 | Pleasure and virtue entail one another [Epicurus] |
| 506 | Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not an adult [Democritus (attr)] |
| 5705 | Nature only wants two things: freedom from pain, and pleasure [Lucretius] |
| 13301 | We are scared of death - except when we are immersed in pleasure! [Seneca] |
| 1478 | Animals don't value pleasure, as they cease sexual intercourse after impregnation [Plutarch] |
| 3777 | Pleasure and pain control all human desires and duties [Bentham] |
| 24166 | Pleasure serves to maintain our relationship with its source [Cochrane] |