Quotes from Epicurus

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

The most important consequence of self-sufficiency is freedom.

The wise man who has become accustomed to necessities knows better how to share with others than how to take from them, so great a treasure of self-sufficiency has he found.

I was not; I have been; I am not; I do not mind.

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.

If a little is not enough for you, nothing is.

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

If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another

Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, for the greatest is the possession of friendship.

It is not the pretended but the real pursuit of philosophy that is needed for we do not need the appearance of good health but to enjoy it in truth.

Contented poverty is an honorable estate.

What was most important in Epicurus' philosophy of nature was the overall conviction that our life on this earth comes with no strings attached; that there is no Maker whose puppets we are; that there is no script for us to follow and be constrained by; that it is up to us to discover the real constraints which our own nature imposes on us.

If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people's opinions, you will never be rich.

Orang bodoh tidak puas dengan semua yang dimilikinya. Mereka menyusahkan hati dengan semua yang tidak dimilikinya.

We must exercise ourselves in thte things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

if a person fights the clear evidence of his senses he will never be able to share in genuine tranquillity

Men inflict injuries from hatred, jealousy or contempt, but the wise man masters all these passions by means of reason.

We need to set our affections on one good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing.

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.

With the Epicureans it was never science for the sake of science but always science for the sake of human happiness.

The conquest of fear, especially fear of unaccountable divine beings who meddle in nature at will, means a reduction in the sum total of human pain and suffering and opens the door to the calm acceptance of a new picture of the world—a world in which nature is autonomous and where there are ideal beings who never meddle.

Therefore, foolish is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will cause pain when it arrives but because anticipation of it is painful.

when you die, your mind will be gone even faster than your body.

It is not possible for a man to banish all fear of the essential questions of life unless he understands the nature of the universe and unless he banishes all consideration that the fables told about the universe could be true. Therefore a man cannot enjoy full happiness, untroubled by turmoil, unless he acts to gain knowledge of the nature of things.