Nature
| Part of a series on |
| Hedonism |
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| Thinkers Jeremy Bentham · Julien Offray de La Mettrie · Aristippus of Cyrene · Epicurus · Theodorus the Atheist · Michel Onfray · Aristippus the Younger · Hermarchus · Lucretius · Pierre Gassendi · Metrodorus of Lampsacus · Zeno of Sidon · Yang Zhu |
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Schools of hedonism
Cārvāka · Cyrenaics · Epicureanism Christian hedonism · Utilitarianism · Abolitionism · Yangism |
| Key concepts Aponia · Ataraxia · Eudaimonia · Happiness · Hedone · Pain · Pleasure · Sensation · Suffering · Tetrapharmakos |
Although his detractors present him as an hedonist, epicurean, and egoist, Yang Zhu was, according to contemporary sources, an early Daoist teacher identified with a new philosophical trend toward naturalism as the best means of preserving life in a decadent and turbulent world (Liu: 1967: 358).
All beings, thought Yang Zhu, have the survival instinct, but man, the highest of creatures, lacking the strength of animals, must rely on intelligence to survive rather than strength. He felt that strength was despicable when used against others (Liu: 1967: 358).
Read more about this topic: Yang Zhu
Famous quotes containing the word nature:
“God alone is our true good, and since we have forsaken him, it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature which has not been serviceable in taking his place: the stars, the heavens, earth, the elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Well: what we gain by science is, after all, sadness, as the Preacher saith. The more we know of the laws & nature of the Universe the more ghastly a business we perceive it all to be—& the non-necessity of it.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“We know more from nature than we can at will communicate.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)