Epicurus > Quotes

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
― Epicurus

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus

“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.”
― Epicurus

“He who is not satisfied with a little is satisfied with nothing.”
― Epicurus

“Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.
Religious tyranny did domineer.
At length the mighty one of Greece
Began to assent the liberty of man.”
― Epicurus

“Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.”
― Epicurus, A Guide to Happiness

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

“You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.”
― Epicurus

“The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity.”
― Epicurus

“It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.”
― Epicurus

“Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.”
― Epicurus

“I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.”
― Epicurus

“It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.”
― Epicurus

“The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.”
― Epicurus

“If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.”
― Epicurus

“I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)”
― Epicurus

“He who has peace of mind disturbs neither himself nor another.”
― Epicurus

“Never say that I have taken it, only that I have given it back.”
― Epicurus

“Haec ego non multis (scribo), sed tibi: satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus. I am writing this not to many, but to you: certainly we are a great enough audience for each other.”
― Epicurus

“do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not”
― Epicurus

“Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. 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. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are.”
― Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus

“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.”
― Epicurus, The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia

“Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering.”
― Epicurus

“The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is a mortal good, the latter and immortal one.”
― Epicurus

“Death is nothing to us. When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the belief that in death, there is awareness.”
― Epicurus

“Nothing is sufficient for the person who finds sufficiency too little”
― Epicurus

“The fool’s life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.”
― Epicurus

“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.”
― Epicurus

“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.”
― Epicurus

“It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.”
― Epicurus