It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.
—Epicurus
Topics: Friendship, Confidence, Friends and Friendship
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.
—Epicurus
Topics: Pleasure
It is vain to ask of the gods what man is capable of supplying for himself.
—Epicurus
Topics: Self-reliance, Prayer
Any device whatever by which one frees himself from fear is a natural good.
—Epicurus
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live.
—Epicurus
Topics: Action
Man was not intended by nature to live in communities and be civilized.
—Epicurus
Topics: Civilization
What is happy and imperishable suffers no trouble itself, nor does it cause trouble to anything. So it is not subject to feelings either of anger or of partiality, for these feelings exist only in what is weak.
—Epicurus
Injustice is not intrinsically bad: people regard it as evil only because it is accompanied by the fear that they will not escape the officials who are appointed to punish evil actions.
—Epicurus
A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs…
—Epicurus
Topics: Life and Living
Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.
—Epicurus
Topics: Love
The wise man thinks of fame just enough to avoid being despised.
—Epicurus
Topics: Fame
Death is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved has no feeling whatsoever, and that which has no feeling means nothing to us.
—Epicurus
In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who is defeated, since he learns most.
—Epicurus
Topics: Learning
A man who causes fear cannot be free from fear.
—Epicurus
Topics: Fear
A strict belief in fate is the worst kind of slavery; on the other hand there is comfort in the thought that God will be moved by our prayers.
—Epicurus
Topics: Fate, Destiny
It is impossible to live pleasurably without living prudently, and honorably, and justly; or to live prudently, and honorably, and justly, without living pleasurably.
—Epicurus
Vast power and great wealth may, up to a certain point, grant us security as far as individual men are concerned, but the security of men as a whole depends on the tranquility of their souls and their freedom from ambition.
—Epicurus
Death, the most dreaded of all 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.
—Epicurus
Topics: Death
Let no one delay the study of philosophy when young nor weary of it when old.
—Epicurus
I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.
—Epicurus
Topics: Learning, Desire
Justice has no independent existence: it results from mutual contracts, and we find it in force wherever there is a mutual agreement to guard against doing injury or sustaining it.
—Epicurus
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
—Epicurus
Topics: Death, Wisdom
The summit of pleasure is the elimination of all that gives pain.
—Epicurus
Topics: Blessings
No pleasure is intrinsically bad, but what causes pleasure is accompanied by many things that disturb pleasure.
—Epicurus
It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.
—Epicurus
Topics: Happiness
The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.
—Epicurus
Topics: Independence, The Present, Future
When we have only a little we should be satisfied; for this reason, that those best enjoy abundance who are contented with the least.
—Epicurus
Topics: Poverty
Let nothing be done in your life, which will cause you fear if it becomes known to your neighbor.
—Epicurus
Topics: Kindness, Excellence, Goodness, Fear, Virtue, Action, Life
All other love is extinguished by self-love; beneficence, humanity, justice, and philosophy sink under it.
—Epicurus
Topics: Self-love
I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.
—Epicurus
Topics: Popularity
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Xenocrates Greek Philosopher, Scientist
- Plato Ancient Greek Philosopher
- Epictetus Ancient Greek Philosopher
- Heraclitus Ancient Greek Philosopher
- Aristotle Ancient Greek Philosopher
- Bias of Priene Greek Orator
- Plotinus Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mystic
- Euripides Ancient Greek Dramatist
- Homer Ancient Greek Poet
- Pythagoras Greek Philosopher
Leave a Reply