Key ideas 

1. Let virtue, not pleasure, lead the way. 
2. When we lack self-control, we are prisoners of pleasure. 
3. People after pleasure postpone everything else. They trade freedom for pleasure. 

Let virtue, rather than pleasure, lead the way 

Let virtue be the standard and lead the way. We shall have pleasure for all that, but we shall be its masters and controllers. It may win some concessions from us but will not force us into anything. 

On the contrary, those who permit pleasure to lead the van have neither one nor the other. They lose virtue altogether and yet do not gain pleasure. They are possessed by pleasure. They are either tortured by its absence or overwhelmed by its excess. They feel unhappy if they don’t have it and yet more unhappy if overwhelmed by it – like those who are caught in the sandbanks of Syrtes, left on dry ground sometimes and tossed into the ocean at other times. 

We are prisoners of pleasures because we lack self-control 

This happens because we greatly lack self-control and secretly love evil. It is dangerous for one who seeks after evil, instead of good, to get it. Great pleasures are like the wild animals we hunt with hardship and danger; even when we catch them, we are anxious because they can tear us to pieces. They turn out to be great evils and take us their prisoners. 

Tasteless people call a person happy if he enjoys more numerous and varied pleasures and is thus a slave of more masters. Let me extend this analogy. A person who tracks wild animals to their dens and follows the tracks of wandering animals with his hounds, neglects far more desirable things and fails to fulfill his duties. A person after pleasure postpones everything else, disregards the first essential—liberty. He sacrifices it to his belly. He does not buy pleasure for himself either but sells himself to pleasure. 

Think about this 

They [who go after pleasure] are possessed by pleasure. They are either tortured by its absence or overwhelmed by its excess. They feel unhappy if they don’t have it and yet more unhappy if they are overwhelmed by it. 

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