Quotes About Epicurus

There is only one way—taught by the Buddha, by Jesus, by the Stoics, by Master Eckhart—to truly overcome the fear of dying, and that way is by not hanging onto life, not experiencing life as a possession. The fear of dying is not truly what it seems to be: the fear of stopping living. Death does not concern us, Epicurus said, "since while we are, death is not yet here; but when death is here we are no more" (Diogenes

Then I pondered the fact that tight boots are one of the best bits of good fortune on earth, because by making one's feet hurt they give occasion to the pleasure of taking them off. Punish your feet, wretch, then unpunish them and there you have cheap happiness, at the mercy of shoemakers and worthy of Epicurus.'' The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis

ÆLF  (ÆLF)    (which, according to various dialects, is pronounced ulf, welph, hulph, hilp, helfe, and, at this day, helpe) implies assistance. So Ælfwin is victorious, and Ælfwold, an auxiliary governour; Ælfgisa, a lender of assistance: with which Boetius, Symmachus, Epicurus, &c. bear a plain analogy.Gibson'sCamden.

Epicurus said that there are only three important ingredients to happiness: friendship, freedom (not to be owned by anyone), and an analysed life. The more you lack these three things, the more you'll want power and money, and they always lead to unhappiness.

Epicurus however is a more troublesome opponent, because he is a combination of two different sorts of pleasure, and because besides himself and his friends there have been so many later champions of his theory, which somehow or other enlists the support of that least competent but most powerful adherent, the general public.

Epicurus even defined pleasure as the absence of pain: not exactly a formula for a life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Still, the underlying principle of his philosophy—that the one thing all nature seeks to avoid is pain, and the one thing it seeks to gain is pleasure, and men should do the same—was only an extreme version of Aristotle's theory of knowledge based on our senses.

Epicurus old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil? Cleanthes

Even more than Socrates, it is Epicurus who nudged Philosophy toward Therapeutics.

No tenemos por qué temer a la muerte, pues, de hecho, no nos encontramos con ella nunca con ella. Cuando todavía estamos aquí, ella aún no está. Y cuando ella está, nosotros ya no estamos.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

The purpose of all knowledge, metaphysical as well as scientific, is to achieve what Epicurus called ataraxia, freedom from irrational fears and anxieties of all sorts—in brief, peace of mind.

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.

So long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist

Thus that which is the most awful of evils, death, is nothing to us, since when we exist there is no death, and when there is death we do not exist.

Today the doctrine of metaphysical free will appears to us as one of those archaic relics of traditional religion that Epicurus and Lucretius should have done their utmost to combat. Moral freedom and determinism are by no means incompatible. Man is himself a causal agent in nature and is morally responsible when he acts "freely," i.e., from his own settled character and in his own capacity as an individual, provided he is exempt from external force or pressure.

Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality.

It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession of the soul.

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

Why should I fear death If I am, Death is not If death is, I am not Why should I fear that which could not exist when I do?