I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give
you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the
great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one
rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but
because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter
consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or
pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain.