Epicurus (c.342–270 BCE) was a Greek philosopher of the Hellenistic age. He is the founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy, which sought happiness through simple living. His importance to science lies in his adapting and promulgating Democritean atomism.
Born on the Greek island of Samos, Epicurus began teaching philosophy at the age of 32. He settled in Athens in 306 BCE and tutored students in his Garden near the city of Athens. The English word “epicure,” denoting a person who loves good food and drink, is taken from Epicurus and the Epicureans.
While Epicurus was a hedonist given that he believed that the goal of all activity was a pleasure, he had an austere definition of it—for Epicurus, the pleasure was merely the absence of discomfort or pain. Epicurus advocated forgoing many short-term pleasures and instead focusing on the overall pleasure and pain distribution over a lifetime. More pleasurable than a life devoted to short-term pleasure was one in which one moderated one’s desires.
Epicurus’s literary output was substantial—Diogenes Laërtius, his principal biographer, inventories some 40 works. One of them, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things,) comprises 37 books. All that has survived is what seems to be an abridged version of Epicurus’s philosophy in the form of three letters, a few fragments, and a compilation of his more essential aphorisms entitled Major Opinions.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Epicurus
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
—Epicurus
Topics: Atheism
All sensations are true; pleasure is our natural goal.
—Epicurus
Topics: Pleasure
We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.
—Epicurus
Topics: Eating
Of all the things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.
—Epicurus
Of all the things that wisdom provides for the happiness of a whole life, the most important by far is acquiring friends.
—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
A man who causes fear cannot be free from fear.
—Epicurus
Topics: Fear
The flesh endures the storms of the present alone, the mind those of the past and future as well.
—Epicurus
Topics: The Present, Food, Eating
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
He who doesn’t find a little enough will find nothing enough.
—Epicurus
Topics: Wealth
Happiness is man’s greatest aim in life. Tranquility and rationality are the cornerstones of happiness.
—Epicurus
Let no one delay the study of philosophy when young nor weary of it when old.
—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
The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.
—Epicurus
Topics: The Present, Independence, Future
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
The mind that is much elevated and insolent with prosperity, and cast down by adversity, is generally abject and base.
—Epicurus
Topics: Prosperity
Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.
—Epicurus
Topics: Love
There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.
—Epicurus
Topics: Justice
It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.
—Epicurus
Topics: Confidence
It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men all live in a city without walls.
—Epicurus
Topics: Death, Death and Dying
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
The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.
—Epicurus
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
Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth is unhappy, though he is master of the world.
—Epicurus
Topics: Blessings, Happiness, Unhappiness, Appreciation, Gratitude
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
All other love is extinguished by self-love; beneficence, humanity, justice, and philosophy sink under it.
—Epicurus
Topics: Self-love
A person cannot have a pleasant life unless he lives prudently, honorably and justly, nor can he live prudently, honorably and justly without a pleasant life. A person cannot possibly have a pleasant life unless he happens to live prudently, honorably and justly.
—Epicurus
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
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
It is vain to ask of the gods what man is capable of supplying for himself.
—Epicurus
Topics: Self-reliance, Prayer
Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.
—Epicurus
Topics: Misfortunes, Fortune
No pleasure is intrinsically bad, but what causes pleasure is accompanied by many things that disturb pleasure.
—Epicurus
If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
—Epicurus
Topics: Happiness
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
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: Desire, Learning
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.
—Epicurus
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
—Epicurus
Topics: Wisdom, Death
Natural justice is an agreement among men about what actions are suitable. Its aim is to prevent men from injuring one another, or to be injured.
—Epicurus
To be rich is not the end, but only a change, of worries.
—Epicurus
Topics: Worry
In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who is defeated, since he learns most.
—Epicurus
Topics: Learning
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