Epicurus Quotes

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

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

Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?

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

We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.

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 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.

Nothing is sufficient for the person who finds sufficiency too little

In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who is defeated, since he learns most.

Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession as they torment us with their loss.

The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.

The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so, cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can, but will not, than they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old.

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.

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

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.

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

Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

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

The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.

The greater difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.

We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help in need.

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