The pleasures associ- ated with bodily changes are secondary in comparison to the state of satisfaction, because when a creature has got what it needed, it does not seek anything else as the means of maximizing the good of the body. We need something when we are in pain from its absence (Ep. Men. 128). 191 Epicurus rated the absence of bodily pain very highly: The flesh’s cry is not to be hungry or thirsty or cold. For one who is in these states and expects to remain so can rival even Zeus in happiness. (VS 33, trans. LS 21G) This did not preclude mental pleasures and pains from being greater than those of the body (DL 10.137; Cicero, De finibus 1.55 (LS 21U)).