Quotes from Epicurus

The acquisition of riches has been for many men, not an end, but a change, of troubles.

Any man who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole world.

Natural justice is a compact resulting from expediency by which men seek to prevent one man from injuring others and to protect him from being injured by them.

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.

The honor paid to a wise man is a great good for those who honor him.

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

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.

Launch your boat, blessed youth, and flee at full speed from every form of culture.

I would rather be first in a little Iberian village than second in Rome.

Friendship dances around the world announcing to all of us that we must wake up to blessedness.

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

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

Death is meaningless to the living because they are living, and meaningless to the dead… because they are dead.

When we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death we human beings all live in an unwalled city.

Where I am death is not, where death is I am not.

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

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.