Sunday Review Features: A picture of happiness? Power and wealth are overrated, according to Epicurus. In this extract from his new book, `The Consolations of Philosophy 1', Alain de Botton argues that we still have much to learn from the ancient Greek thinker

The Sunday Telegraph London | March 12, 2000| | Copyright

"I DON'T KNOW how I shall conceive of the good," wrote Epicurus, "if I take away the pleasures of taste, if I take away sexual pleasure, if I take away the pleasure of hearing, and if I take away the sweet emotions that are caused by the sight of beautiful forms."

Epicurus was born in 341bc on the island of Samos, a few miles off the coast of Western Asia Minor. He took to philosophy early, travelling from the age of 14 to hear the Platonist Pamphilus and the atomic philosopher Nausiphanes. But he found he could not agree with much of what they taught, and by his late twenties had decided to ...

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