r as the chief annoyances to human life proceed from
ignorance of what things are good and what bad, and as by reason of that
mistake men are often deprived of the greatest pleasures, and tortured by
the most bitter grief of mind, we have need to exercise wisdom, which, by
removing groundless alarms and vain desires, and by banishing the rashness
of all erroneous opinions, offers herself to us as the surest guide to
pleasure. For it is wisdom alone which expels sorrow from our minds, and
prevents our shuddering with fear: she is the instructress who enables us
to live in tranquillity, by extinguishing in us all vehemence of desire.
For desires are insatiable, and ruin not only individuals but entire
families, and often overturn the whole state. From desires arise hatred,
dissensions, quarrels, seditions, wars. Nor is it only out of doors that
these passions vent themselves, nor is it only against others that they
run with blind violence; but they are often shut up, as it were, in the
mind, and throw that into confusion with their disagreements.

And the consequence of this is, to make life thoroughly wretched; so that
the wise man is the only one who, having cut away all vanity and error,
and removed it from him, can live contented within the boundaries of
nature, without melancholy and without fear. For what diversion can be
either more useful or more adapted for human life than that which Epicurus
employed? For he laid it down that there were three kinds of desires; the
first, such as were natural and necessary; the second, such as were
natural but not necessary; the third, such as were neither natural nor
necessary. And these are all such, that those which are necessary are
satisfied without much trouble or expense: even those which are natural
and not necessary, do not require a great deal, because nature itself
makes the riches, which are sufficient to content it, easy of acquisition
and of limited quantity: but as for vain desires, it is impossible to find
any limit to, or any moderation in them.

XIV. But if we see that the whole life of man is thrown into disorder by
error and ignorance; and that wisdom is the only thing which can relieve
us from the sway of the passions and the fear of danger, and which can
teach us to bear the injuries of fortune itself with moderation, and which
shows us all the ways which lead to tranquillity and peace; what reason is
there that we should hesitate to say that wisdom is to be