Don't fear the gods, Don't worry about death; What is good is easy to get, and / What is terrible is easy to endure.
— The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia
Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded Epicureanism. He taught that a pleasant life and lasting happiness, the highest good, come from managing one's desires, letting go of needless fears, friendship and virtuous living. At his school in Athens, known as the Garden, he and his followers ate simple meals and talked philosophy among friends.
He held that the gods exist but take no part in human affairs, and, following Democritus, that everything in nature results from atoms moving through empty space. He added the idea of the atomic swerve, which left room for free will. Of the more than 300 works he is said to have written, only a few letters, the Principal Doctrines and fragments survive.
He held that the gods exist but take no part in human affairs, and, following Democritus, that everything in nature results from atoms moving through empty space. He added the idea of the atomic swerve, which left room for free will. Of the more than 300 works he is said to have written, only a few letters, the Principal Doctrines and fragments survive.
Most quoted works
- The Art of Happiness 3
- Principal Doctrines 2
Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
— A Guide To Happiness
Men inflict injuries from hatred, jealousy or contempt, but the wise man masters all these passions by means of reason.
— The Art of Happiness
The impassive soul disturbs neither itself nor others.
— The Art of Happiness
27. Of all the means which are procured by wisdom to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is the acquisition of firends.
— Principal Doctrines
Death is nothing to us, because a body that has been dispersed into elements experiences no sensations, and the absence of sensation is nothing to us.
— Principal Doctrines
Death means nothing to us
— The Art of Happiness
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.
He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing .
Never say that I have taken it, only that I have given it back.