Epicurus Quotes

58 Sourced Quotes

The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance.

Epicurus
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.

Epicurus
If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations by your groundless belief and so you will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. If in your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which does not, you will not escape error, as you will be maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case of judging between right and wrong opinion.

Epicurus
We have been born once and there can be no second birth. Fir all eternity we shall no longer be. But you, although you are not master of tomorrow, are postponing your happiness...

Epicurus
Earthquakes may be brought about because wind is caught up in the earth, so the earth is dislocated in small masses and is continually shaken, and that causes it to sway.

Epicurus
There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

Epicurus
Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole life. (16).

Epicurus
Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.

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

Epicurus
Those desires that do not bring pain if they are not satisfied are not necessary; and they are easily thrust aside whenever to satisfy them appears difficult or likely to cause injury.

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

Epicurus
What will happen to me if that which this desire seeks is achieved, and what if it is not?

Epicurus
The flesh receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of the future, procures a complete and perfect life, and we have no longer any need of unlimited time. Nevertheless the mind does not shun pleasure, and even when circumstances make death imminent, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the best life.

Epicurus
It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

Epicurus
A world is a circumscribed portion of sky...it is a piece cut off from the infinite.

Epicurus
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.

Epicurus
Injustice is not evil in itself, but only in the fear and apprehension that one will not escape those who have been set up to punish the offense.

Epicurus
Of our desires some are natural and necessary, others are natural but not necessary; and others are neither natural nor necessary, but are due to groundless opinion.

Epicurus