Epicurus said about his own illness: 'When I was sick, I didn't spend time talking about my disease or discussing it with visitors. Instead, I focused on the most important things. I especially thought about how my mind could stay free from worry and keep its own happiness, even though it naturally shared in my body's pain.'
'In my sickness' (saith Epicurus of himself:) 'my discourses were not concerning the nature of my disease, neither was that, to them that came to visit me, the subject of my talk; but in the consideration and contemplation of that, which was of especial weight and moment, was all my time bestowed and spent, and among others in this very thing, how my mind, by a natural and unavoidable sympathy partaking in some sort with the present indisposition of my body, might nevertheless keep herself free from trouble, and in present possession of her own proper happiness.