Epicurus Quotes

All sensations are true; pleasure is our natural goal.

Gratitude is a virtue that has commonly profit annexed to it.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

Death is nothing to us, because a body that has been dispersed into elements experiences no sensations, and the absence of sensation is nothing to us.

Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering.

There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms being infinite in number ... are borne on far out into space.

In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who is defeated, since he learns most.

When we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist.

Death means nothing to us

We must meditate on what brings happiness, since when it has, it has everything, and when he misses, we do everything to have it

Death is meaningless to the living because they are living, and meaningless to the dead ... because they are dead.

Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily. Epicurus taught: Pleasure, defined as freedom from pain, is the highest good.

Many friends are the key to happiness

The pleasant life is not produced by continual drinking and dancing, nor sexual intercourse, nor rare dishes of sea food and other delicacies of a luxurious table. On the contrary, it is produced by sober reasoning which examines the motives for every choice and avoidance, driving away beliefs which are the source of mental disturbances.

So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.

I am grateful to blessed Nature, because she made what is necessary easy to acquire and what is hard to acquire unnecessary.

It is vain to ask of the gods what man is capable of supplying for himself.

Meditate then, on all these things, and on those things which are related to them, both day and night, and both alone and with like-minded companions. For if you will do this, you will never be disturbed while asleep or awake by imagined fears, but you will live like a god among men. For a man who lives among immortal blessings is in no respect like a mortal being.

If you would enjoy real freedom, you must be the slave of Philosophy.

The mind that is much elevated and insolent with prosperity, and cast down with adversity, is generally abject and base.

The fool's life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth .

One who understands the limits of the good life knows that what eliminates the pains brought on by need and what makes the whole of life perfect is easily obtained, so that there is no need for enterprises that entail the struggle for success.19

So long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist

By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It

If a little is not enough for you, nothing is.

He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing .

It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession of the soul.

Those desires that do not bring pain if they are not satisfied are not necessary; and they are easily thrust aside whenever to satisfy them appears difficult or likely to cause injury.

He who doesn't find a little enough will find nothing enough.

Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession as they torment us with their loss.

panta rei ("All things are in flux"),

A strict belief in fate is the worst of slavery, imposing upon our necks an everlasting lord and tyrant, whom we are to stand in awe of night and day.

Two of Epicurus's early influences, Democritus and Pyrrho, had actually journeyed all the way to what is now India, where they had encountered Buddhism in the schools of the gymnosophists

A free man cannot acquire many possessions, because this is no easy feat without becoming a hireling of mobs or dynasts. And yet he has a constant abundance of everything, and if he should chance to gain many possessions, he could easily portion them out so as to win his neighbors' good will.

Thus that which is the most awful of evils, death, is nothing to us, since when we exist there is no death, and when there is death we do not exist.

To eat and drink without a friend is to devour like the lion and the wolf.

Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality.

Unlike at the Academy or the Lyceum, women, some of them concubines and mistresses, as well as a few slaves, joined the conversation; further, many of the students here had arrived without academic credentials in mathematics or music, de rigueur for entry to the other Athenian schools of higher learning. Everyone in the Garden radiated earnestness and good cheer. The subject under discussion was happiness.

When we say that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasure of the profligate or that which depends on physical enjoyment
as some think who do not understand our teachings, disagree with them, or give them an evil interpretation
but by pleasure we mean the state wherein the body is free from pain and the mind from anxiety.

No pleasure is evil in itself; but the means by which certain pleasures
are gained bring pains many times greater than the pleasures.

Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help in need.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

He who least needs tomorrow, will most gladly greet tomorrow.

The summit of pleasure is the elimination of all that gives pain.

Pleasure and pain moreover supply the motives of desire and of avoidance, and the springs of conduct generally. This being so, it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only as being a means to the attainment of a life of pleasure. But that which is not itself a means to anything else, but to which all else is a means, is what the Greeks term the telos, the highest, ultimate or final Good.

For a wrongdoer to be undetected is difficult; and for him to have confidence that his concealment will continue is impossible.

The most important consequence of self-sufficiency is freedom.

Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity.

If a person fights the clear evidence of his senses he will never be able to share in genuine tranquillity

All friendship is desirable in itself, though it starts from the need of help

Pleasure is the first good. It is the beginning of every choice and every aversion. It is the absence of pain in the body and of troubles in the soul.

Most beautiful is the sight of those near and dear to us when our original kinship makes us of one mind.

We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and righteously.

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

Launch your boat, blessed youth, and flee at full speed from every form of culture.

If you wish to make Pythocles wealthy, don't give him more money; rather, reduce his desires.

Of all the gifts that wise Providence grants us to make life full and happy, friendship is the most beautiful.

The term "incorporeal" is properly applied only to the void, which cannot act or be acted on. Since the soul can act and be acted upon, it is corporeal.

A world is a circumscribed portion of sky ... it is a piece cut off from the infinite.

The risings and settings of the sun, the moon, and the other heavenly bodies may come about from the lighting up and quenching of their fires ... ; for nothing in our sensory experience runs counter to this hypothesis. Or the said effects may be caused by the emergence of these bodies from a point above the earth and again by the earth's position in front of them; for nothing in our sensory experience is against this.45 Here two alternative explanations of "risings and settings" are offered; both are of equal value and equally true, since neither is contradicted by anything in our experience. On the contrary, we have all seen fires die down from lack of fuel, and lights obscured or blacked out by objects coming in front of them.

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.

With the Epicureans it was never science for the sake of science but always science for the sake of human happiness.

Freedom is the greatest fruit of self sufficiency.

If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires.

It is not the young man who should be considered fortunate but the old man who has lived well, because the young man in his prime wanders much by chance, vacillating in his beliefs, while the old man has docked in the harbor, having safeguarded his true happiness.

We have been born once and there can be no second birth. Fir all eternity we shall no longer be. But you, although you are not master of tomorrow, are postponing your happiness ...

Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are.

Let no young man delay the study of philosophy, and let no old man become weary of it; for it is never too early nor too late to care for the well-being of the soul.

Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure.

Why are you afraid of death? Where you are, death is not. Where death is, you are not. What is it that you fear.

The cry of the flesh bids us escape from hunger, thirst, and cold; for he who is free of these and expects to remain so might live in happiness even with Zeus.

Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.
Religious tyranny did domineer.
At length the mighty one of Greece
Began to assent the liberty of man.

When you die, your mind will be gone even faster than your body.

But the universe is infinite.

The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.

When someone admits one and rejects another which is equally in accordance with the appearances, it is clear that he has quitted all physical explanation and descended into myth.

Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old.

Contented poverty is an honorable estate.

Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

He who has peace of mind disturbs neither himself nor another.

Vain is the word of that philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

Moreover, the universe as a whole is infinite, for whatever is limited has an outermost edge to limit it, and such an edge is defined by something beyond. Since the universe has no edge, it has no limit; and since it lacks a limit, it is infinite and unbounded. Moreover, the universe is infinite both in the number of its atoms and in the extent of its void.

The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.

Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death we human beings all live in an unwalled city.

Neither one should hesitate about dedicating oneself to philosophy when young, nor should get tired of doing it when one's old, because no one is ever too young or too old to reach one's soul's healthy.

The acquisition of riches has been for many men, not an end, but a change, of troubles.

[A] right understanding that death is nothing
to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it
an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for
immortality. For there is nothing terrible in life for the man who has
truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living.

If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.

I would rather be first in a little Iberian village than second in Rome.

Men are so thoughtless, nay, so mad, that some, through fear of death, force themselves to die.

Any device whatever by which one frees himself from the fear of others is a natural good.

Of all the things that wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole man, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship.