Even if the gods did exist, the Epicureans argued, they didn't care about us. Rather, everything comes from nature, and all that really exists are atoms and void, moving and congregating.

Even if the gods did exist, the Epicureans argued, they didn't care about us. Rather, everything comes from nature, and all that really exists are atoms and void, moving and congregating.

Epicurus thought of justice as an agreement to prevent people harming and being harmed.

People should be able to develop their abilities and interests and have access to such goods as friendship, artistry, and nature and a political voice. It's possible to be poor and yet have all this, but in a polarized society, and one where culture and adventure have been thoroughly monetised, it is a lot more difficult.

We need grief as a precursor to emotional refreshment, and so consume it vicariously in somewhat titrated but powerful enough form through engagement with the arts.

Claims like 'Slavery is wrong' are not fully common-sensical, so they must be at least partly theoretical.

For the chemists, who wanted to manufacture new medicines and elixirs and transform base substances into noble ones, the notion that there was no metaphysical barrier to doing so - it was just a matter of getting the particles into new arrangements - was encouraging. That was the Baconian programme.