How to Find Happiness: An Ancient Guide to the Good Life

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers

by Marcus Tullius Cicero, Katharina Volk - editor translator introduction

Does happiness come from the pursuit of pleasure or moral virtue? A vivid new translation of Cicero’s exploration of a timeless question

“Of course, we all want to be happy.” So wrote the Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero. He and his fellow Greek and Roman philosophers agreed that the secret to happiness—or what they called the “good life”—is pursuing the “greatest good.” The only problem is that they couldn’t agree on what the greatest good is. Cicero addressed this dilemma by composing a set of dialogues, On the Greatest Good and Evil (De finibus bonorum et malorum), in which he pitted advocates of different philosophical approaches to happiness against one another. Notably, these include the Epicureans (who believe that the greatest good is pleasure) and the Stoics (according to whom it is moral virtue). Rather than choosing sides, Cicero considers the pros and cons of the different philosophies, ultimately leaving it to his readers to make up their own minds. In How to Find Happiness, Katharina Volk offers a vivid new translation of selections from Cicero’s work, complete with an introduction. The result is a lively and engaging debate that invites each of us to discover our own path to happiness.

Genres: Philosophy

Audible Audio

Published February 24, 2026

About the author

Born 3 January 106 BC, Arpinum, Italy
Died 7 December 43 BC (aged 63), Formia, Italy

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.

Alternate profiles:
Cicéron
Marco Tullio Cicerone


Note: All editions should have Marcus Tullius Cicero as primary author. Editions with another name on the cover should have that name added as secondary author.

Reviews

[Ranime · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't expect to like this as much as I did, especially because I didn't believe it would be as digestible as it turned out to be.

This really awakened an interest in both the works of Cicero, and in ancient philosophy.

[Benjamin Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

The selection takes out a bit more than I would like, but the original is still very good: books 1 and 3 are arguments for Epicureanism and Stoicism, 2 and 4 are rebuttals.
Stoicism is, as I have elsewhere experienced it, frustratingly good. I was not expecting the same from Epicureanism. The solution, of course, is to recognize that [graciously infused] virtue is a means to glorifying and enjoying God, whose gifts are to be received and pursued as he gives them. But Cicero didn’t have that kind of revelation.

A few highlights: 1) Cicero exploiting Epicureanism’s inability to account for friendship. If everything is for pleasure, friends are loved for your sake, not theirs. 2) Cicero pointing out that “according to nature” has to include seeking the goods of the body and/or fortune. Being a rational animal doesn’t mean you aren’t an animal. 3) Cato arguing that the sapiens is in actuality what the many are foolishly seeking to be.

[Massimo Pigliucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to Find Happiness is a new partial translation of a classic book by Marcus Tullius Cicero: De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil). In it, Cicero sets out to explore and critically evaluate the major philosophies of life of the time: Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Platonism. The full De Finibus comprises five "books" (i.e., chapters): the first one devoted to a positive presentaton of Epicureanism, the second to a critique of Epicureanism, the third to a positive presentation of Stoicism, the fourth to a critique of Stoicism, and the fifth one to a presentation and critique of Platonism, followed by a brief overall assessment of the three philosophies. Epicureanism is ruled out by Cicero chiefly on two grounds: (i) it's a hedonistic (i.e., pleasure-centered) philosophy, and as such it makes for a self-centered approach to life which does not work well for a social animal like us; (ii) Epicurus redefines the highest pleasure as lack of pain, which leads to all sorts of contradictions and untenable statements. Although the rest of the book presents a critical version of Stoicism and a positive one of Platonism, Cicero himself by the end states that he actually prefers the Stoic approach as the most coherent and likely to lead to a good human life. This Princeton Press translation is well done with one major downside: we get no excerpts at all from the fifth book, a choice that the translator defends on the basis of the rather feeble excuse that the work of Antiochus (the head of the Academy in the period in which the dialogue is set) is not well known today. Well, too bad, it ought to be! And people also ought to witness the way in which Cicero weaves together what has been discussed in the previous chapters and delivers his tentative (he was, after all, a Skeptic!) verdict. It's a missed opportunity.

[Gleb Berloff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book.
I liked it more than I expected, the arguments are very well laid-out and has a very important point in the end: it is best to strive for balance, not to fall into moral extreme. Some of the things written in this book deserve to be made into world-famous quotes.
Highly recommended.