On the Happy Life, Section 10

Seneca — The Senator

Virtue sweeps all these vices away. It grabs us by the ear and makes us think carefully about pleasures before we chase them. Virtue doesn't even value the pleasures it does allow — it just permits them. Its happiness doesn't come from using these pleasures, but from using them with restraint. "But if moderation reduces pleasure, doesn't it damage the highest good?" You throw yourself into pleasures — I hold them in check. You indulge in pleasure — I use it sparingly. You think pleasure is the highest good — I don't even think it's good at all. You do everything for pleasure's sake. I do nothing for it.

Seneca — The Senator Original

All these are dissipated by virtue, which plucks a man by the ear, and measures the value of pleasures before she permits them to be used; nor does she set much store by those which she allows to pass current, for she merely allows their use, and her cheerfulness is not due to her use of them, but to her moderation in using them. "Yet when moderation lessens pleasure, it impairs the highest good." You devote yourself to pleasures, I check them; you indulge in pleasure, I use it; you think that it is the highest good, I do not even think it to be good: for the sake of pleasure I do nothing, you do everything.