Epicurus Quotes

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

Live your life without attracting attention.

Without confidence, there is no friendship.

There is no such thing as justice or injustice among those beasts that cannot make agreements not to injure or be injured. This is also true of those tribes that are unable or unwilling to make agreements not to injure or be injured.

We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.

Any man who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole world.

To be rich is not the end, but only a change, of worries.

I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)

Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death we human beings all live in an unwalled city.

There is nothing terrible in life for the man who realizes there is nothing terrible in death.

Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily. Epicurus taught: Pleasure, defined as freedom from pain, is the highest good.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

It is not the young man who should be considered fortunate but the old man who has lived well, because the young man in his prime wanders much by chance, vacillating in his beliefs, while the old man has docked in the harbor, having safeguarded his true happiness.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men in their various relations with each other, in whatever circumstances they may be, that they will neither injure nor be injured.

The wise man who has become accustomed to necessities knows better how to share with others than how to take from them, so great a treasure of self-sufficiency has he found.

Justice is never anything in itself, but in the dealings of men with one another in any place whatever and at any time. It is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

Vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man. For just as there is no profit in medicine if it does not expel the diseases of the body, so there is no profit in philosophy either, if it does not expel the suffering of the mind.

If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.

It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.

But the universe is infinite.

The things you really need are few and easy to come by; but the things you can imagine you need are infinite, and you will never be satisfied.

The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation.

Virtue consisteth of three parts,--temperance, fortitude, and justice.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

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.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live.

Do everything like someone is gazing at you.

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

We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, to which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and confusion.

Remember that the future is neither ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither count on it as sure to come nor abandon hope of it as certain not to be.

He who understands the limits of life knows that it is easy to obtain that which removes the pain of want and makes the whole of life complete and perfect. Thus he has no longer any need of things which involve struggle.

So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.

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

I would rather be first in a little Iberian village than second in Rome.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.

Nothing is sufficient for the person who finds sufficiency too little

It is not so much our friends' help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

Why are you afraid of death? Where you are, death is not. Where death is, you are not. What is it that you fear.

Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.

Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity.

He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing .

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

Let no young man delay the study of philosophy, and let no old man become weary of it; for it is never too early nor too late to care for the well-being of the soul.

Death is meaningless to the living because they are living, and meaningless to the dead… because they are dead.

The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship.

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.