User:Abu Muawiyah

Pain itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

To follow a practice that rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains. Consequently, the master-builder of human happiness rejects pleasure to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it?

The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains. Consequently, the master-builder of human happiness rejects pleasure to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it?