Just as Pythagoras and Socrates were maligned and even put to death by those who either misunderstood or misrepresented their teachings, so Epicurus, another Greek, has been maligned ever since his own time, although he fortunately died a natural death. Incidentally, he died of the stone. It could be that there was an excess of calcium in his body and that it had got concentrated in the wrong place, producing the stone in the bladder or the kidney--for he tried to live a simple life and ate only barley, bread, and cheese and drank only water. There was probably an excess of cheese in his diet, producing the excess of calcium. However the point I wish to make is that he is supposed to have preached heathenism, the pursuit of pleasure and enjoyment as being the highest good, but the truth is, as demonstrated by his simple life, that he was an ascetic. He did not believe in cluttering himself up with a lot of possessions and he sought the freedom from anxiety which this gave him. The freedom from those desires for luxuries and comforts which fill most people left him with a serene mind. This serenity was enjoyable and pleasant; so what he meant by pleasure was a pleasure of living the good life, not the pleasure of living the animal life. But if he is to be judged by his diet, his philosophy was incomplete and imbalanced.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 4 : The Sage Part 2 > # 510
