A Quote by Plato

Do you, like a skilful weigher, put into the balance the pleasures and the pains, near and distant, and weigh them, and then say which outweighs the other? If you weigh pleasures against pleasures, you of course take the more and greater; or if you weigh pains against pains, then you choose that course of action in which the painful is exceeded by the pleasant, whether the distant by the near or the near by the distant; and you avoid that course of action in which the pleasant is exceeded by the painful.

Plato

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Action Against Avoid Balance Choose Course Distant Greater Like More Near Other Painful Pains Pleasant Pleasures Put Say Take Them Then Weigh Whether Which You Choose

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Plato
Greek - Philosopher
427 BC - 347 BC

I fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that the only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom.

Plato

I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures.

Michel de Montaigne

No pleasure is evil in itself; but the means by which certain pleasures are gained bring pains many times greater than the pleasures.

Epicurus

How should all the apparatus of heaven and earth make poetry for a mind that had no movements of awe and tenderness, no sense of fellowship which thrills from the near to the distant, and back again from the distant to the near?

George Eliot

It is often a mistake to combine two pleasures, because pleasures, like pains, can act as counter-irri-tants to each other.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The honest Man takes Pains, and then enjoys Pleasures; the knave takes Pleasure, and then suffers Pains.

Benjamin Franklin

Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come. BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message? BEATRICE Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point ... You have no stomach, signior: fare you well. Exit BENEDICK Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that... (Much Ado About Nothing)

William Shakespeare

I feel more voluntary about my pleasures and pains than the average American who has his needs dictated by Madison Avenue (my projections, of course). I feel sustained, excited, and constantly growing in my spiritual and intellectual pursuits.

Duane Elgin

The difference is great between one's outside "life," the things which happen to one, incidents, pains and pleasures, and one's "living."

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived or that the fact which he relates should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other and according to the superiority which I discover, I pronounce my decision. Always I reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates, then and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

David Hume

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

Charles Caleb Colton

Perspective is a most subtle discovery in mathematical studies, for by means of lines it causes to appear distant that which is near, and large that which is small.

Leonardo da Vinci

Anytime you're trying to set a course, there's gonna be decisions made, and you have to weigh all options, and then in the end you come up with the best course.

Mike Leach

In Kosovo, the U.S. has chosen a course of action that escalates atrocities and violence. It is also a course of action that strikes a blow against the regime of international order, but which offers the weak at least some protection from predatory states.

Noam Chomsky

Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.

John Dryden

I love Death because he breaks the human pattern and frees us from pleasures too prolonged as well as from the pains of this world. It is pleasant, too, to remember that Death lies in our hands; he must come if we call him. ... I think if there were no death, life would be more than flesh and blood could bear.

Stevie Smith

A Quote by Plato

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