So I should say that civilizations begin with religion and stoicism: they end with scepticism and unbelief, and the undisciplined pursuit of individual pleasure. A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.
Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable.
Fun is what you do for yourself. If somebody else does it, it's entertainment.
I really play tennis for me, enjoy it for me.
Masturbation is not only an expression of self-regard: it is also the natural emotional outlet of those who...have already accepted as inevitable the wide gulf between their real futures and the expectations of their fantasies.
I drink sherry and wine by myself because I like it and I get the sensuous feeling of indulgence...luxury, bliss, erotic-tinged.
Masturbation is the thinking man's television.
You gotta make your own fun. That's right, listen to that mother of two, she knows what I'm talking about.
If it pleases you and you can write at all, it's gonna please somebody else.
Any enjoyment is weakened when shared.
I think music is a selfish masturbatory event - for the listener, the maker, the candlestick...maker.
There is a terrible lot of us who don't think that we come from a monkey, but if there are some people who think that they do, why, it's not our business to rob them of what little pleasure they might get out of imagining it.
Action based on reason, action therefore which is only to be understood by reason, knows only one end, the greatest pleasure of the acting individual.
It's fine to indulge yourself so long as you don't try and foist it on the rest of the world.
