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.
EpicurusIf the gods have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not all-powerful. If they are neither able nor willing, they are neither all-powerful or benevolent. If they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, why does it exist?
EpicurusFor a wrongdoer to be undetected is difficult; and for him to have confidence that his concealment will continue is impossible.
EpicurusMen, believing in myths, will always fear something terrible, everlasting punishment as certain or probable . . . Men base all these fears not on mature opinions, but on irrational fancies, that they are more disturbed by fear of the unknown than by facing facts. Peace of mind lies in being delivered from all these fears.
Epicurus