Sleep and Ake.
Away then with all those vain pretences of making ourselves happy within ourselves, of feasting on on our own thoughts, of being satisfied with the consciousness of well-doing, and of despising all assistance and all supplies from external objects. This is the voice of Pride, not of Nature. And it were well if even this pride could support itself, and communicate a real inwards pleasure, however melancholy or severe. But this impotent pride can do no more than regulate the outside, and, with infinite pains and attention, compose the language and countenance to a philosophical dignity, in order to deceive the ignorant vulgar. The heart, meanwhile, is empty of all enjoyment, and the mind, unsupported by its proper objects, sinks into the deepest sorrow and dejection. Miserable, but vain mortal! Thy mind be happy within itself! With what resources is it endowed to fill so immense a void, and supply the place of all thy bodily senses and faculties? Can thy head subsist without thy other members? In such a situation,
What foolish figure must it make?
Do nothing else but sleep and ake.David Hume (1776) The Epicurean