On Pleasure

May 31, 2025

Boredom compels them to invent unwholesome dishes, then to take spa treatments to combat the unwelcome side effect of such a diet. In the space of a single day they often want both breeze and a heavy cloak, heat as well as ice to offset the heat and - what’s most absurd - they hanker for hunger as well as thirst.

Addicted to sex, they nevertheless derive no pleasure from it since they do not wait until the urge arises in its own good time. The upshot is that the pleasures they pursue are joyless and disappointing in their consumation.

~ Dio Chrysostom, Oration 6