Epicurus
Epicurus
Epicuruswas an ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters of Epicurus's 300 written works remain. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
choices return pleasure
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.
judging choices feelings
Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we always come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing.
men able impossible
It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.
happiness being-happy money
If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
life easy possession
A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.
freedom self liberty
Freedom is the greatest fruit of self sufficiency.
friendship happiness mean
Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
attitude rome village
I would rather be first in a little Iberian village than second in Rome.
lions drink
To eat and drink without a friend is to devour like the lion and the wolf.
men birth realizing
Some men spend their whole life furnishing for themselves the things proper to life without realizing that at our birth each of us was poured a mortal brew to drink.
blessed weakness trouble
A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness.
philosophy
He who says either that the time for philosophy has not yet come or that it has passed is like someone who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or that it has passed.
pain expectations evil
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.
friendship relationship leadership
It is not so much our friends' help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.