Money is not everything

But to understand where all this error comes from, we must explain the nature of the accusation of the pain and the praise of the glory, that I will reveal the whole matter, and the very things that were said by that inventor of truth and the almost architect of the blessed life. For no one wants the pain itself because it is painful or hates it or flees from it, but because of the consequences of great pains that they who follow the pain do not know.

There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply 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?

But to understand where all this error comes from, we must explain the nature of the accusation of the pain and the praise of the glory, that I will reveal the whole matter, and the very things that were said by that inventor of truth and the almost architect of the blessed life. For no one wants the pain itself because it is painful or hates it or flees from it, but because of the consequences of great pains that they who follow the pain do not know. There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply 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?