Whatsoever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer.

We begin every act of choice and avoidance from pleasure, and it is to pleasure that we return using our experience of pleasure as the criterion of every good thing.

Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men harming or being harmed.

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

If death causes you no pain when you're dead, it is foolish to allow the fear of it to cause you pain now.

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

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