Aristippus

Aristippus (c. 435 – c. 356 BC), also known as Aristippus the Elder or Aristippus of Cyrene, was a Greek philosopher, founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy. He was born in Cyrene, a Greek colony in Northern Africa, and was a disciple of Socrates. In his teaching, he laid too much emphasis on one principle of Socrates, apart from the rest, in insisting too exclusively upon pleasure as the supreme good and ultimate aim of life. He flourished around 399 BC. Diogenes Laërtius, on the authority of Sotion and Panaetius, gives a long list of books whose authorship is ascribed to him, but none of Aristippus's works are extant. Diogenes Laërtius has also states that according to Sosicrates of Rhodes, Aristippus never wrote anything.

Wisdom & Quotes

• The vice is not in entering, but in not coming out again.

- remark to pupils who saw him entering the house of a prostitute, cited in Montaigne, Essays

• I possess, I am not possessed.
• The best thing is to possess pleasures without being their slave, not to be devoid of pleasures.

- quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers"

• It is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without ever being worsted.

- quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers"

• It was better to be a beggar than an ignorant person; for that a beggar only wants money, but an ignorant person wants humanity.

- quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers"
- Those who eat most, and who take the most exercise, are not in better health than they who eat just as much as is good for them; and in the same way it is not those who know a great many things, but they who know what is useful, who are valuable men.
- quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers"

• Drop what is beyond your strength, and only carry what you can.

- quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers"

• I know that phlegm, and I know that lice, proceed from us, but still we cast them away as useless.

- quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers"

• That man is but a slave who comes as free.

- quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers"

• Good cheer is no hindrance to a good life.
• Those that study particular sciences, and neglect philosophy, are like Penelope's wooers, that make love to the waiting women.
• Native ability without education is like a tree which bears no fruit.

Mencius