Epicurus
341–270 BC. Ἐπίκουρος
16 genuine quotes, each found in the text, and 2 wrongly credited to Epicurus.
Greek philosopher (341–270 BC), an Athenian brought up on Samos, who founded his school in Mytilene and Lampsacus and then in Athens, where it met in his Garden; he taught that pleasure, understood as freedom from pain and fear, is the goal of life, and that the gods and death are nothing to fear. Of some three hundred rolls only three letters and the forty Principal Doctrines survive whole, quoted by Diogenes Laertius in book X of his Lives, with a further collection of sayings in a Vatican manuscript. Many lines that circulate under his name are not in these texts: the ‘Epicurean paradox’ on evil is credited to him only by the Christian writer Lactantius (On the Anger of God 13), and others are Lucretius’ or Seneca’s own words, though some genuine sayings of his survive only because Seneca and other later writers quote them.
Genuine Epicurus quotes
- 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.
Letter to Menoeceus (270 BC), letter to Menoeceus, section 125 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.125); Hicks translation, 1925.
- 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.
Vatican Sayings (270 BC), Vatican Sayings 35 (Gnomologium Vaticanum, Vat. gr. 1950); Greek as in Bailey, Epicurus: The Extant Remains (1926), p. 110; English, Peter Saint-Andre (2010, CC0).
- It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly.
Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 5 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.140); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims.
- Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.
Letter to Menoeceus (270 BC), letter to Menoeceus, opening (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.122); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.
- He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.
Letter to Menoeceus (270 BC), letter to Menoeceus, sections 134–135 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.134–135); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.
- Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 27 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.148); Hicks translation (“Sovran Maxims”), 1925.
- Natural justice is a symbol or expression of expediency, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.
Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 31 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.150); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims.
- Nature’s wealth at once has its bounds and is easy to procure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinite distance.
Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 15 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.144); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims.
- No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.
Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 8 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.141); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims.
- Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is prudence. Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy; from it spring all the other virtues …
Letter to Menoeceus (270 BC), letter to Menoeceus, section 132 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.132); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.
Show all 16 genuine Epicurus quotesShow fewer
- Again, we regard independence of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it …
Letter to Menoeceus (270 BC), letter to Menoeceus, section 130 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.130); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.
- We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.
Letter to Menoeceus (270 BC), letter to Menoeceus (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.127); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.
- The just man enjoys the greatest peace of mind, while the unjust is full of the utmost disquietude.
Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 17 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.144); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims.
- There never was an absolute justice, but only an agreement made in reciprocal intercourse in whatever localities now and again from time to time, providing against the infliction or suffering of harm.
Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 33 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.150); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims.
- When we say that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.
Letter to Menoeceus (270 BC), letter to Menoeceus, section 131 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.131); Hicks translation, 1925.
- It would be impossible to banish fear on matters of the highest importance, if a man did not know the nature of the whole universe, but lived in dread of what the legends tell us. Hence without the study of nature there was no enjoyment of unmixed pleasures.
Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 12 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.143); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims.
Quotes wrongly credited to 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?
Not found. Not in these words, and perhaps not his argument at all: nothing Epicurus wrote that survives contains it. The Christian writer Lactantius credited the argument to him around 313, the question form is David Hume’s (1779), and the last line has not been found before 1992.
- The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
Misattributed. No. The two sentences come from an English essay ‘In Vindication of Epicurus’, credited to Saint-Évremond, in the book Epicurus’s Morals (1712); a 1766 anthology cited that book as ‘Epic. mor.’, and later collections signed it Epicurus.
The works we hold
Quotes are looked up word for word in these texts. The number is how many genuine quotes here come from each.
| Work | Year | Genuine quotes |
|---|---|---|
| Letter to Menoeceus Ἐπιστολὴ πρὸς Μενοικέα | 270 BC | 7 |
| Principal Doctrines Κύριαι Δόξαι | 270 BC | 8 |
| Vatican Sayings Ἐπικούρου Προσφώνησις (Gnomologium Vaticanum) | 270 BC | 1 |
| Letter to Herodotus Ἐπιστολὴ πρὸς Ἡρόδοτον | 270 BC | 0 |
| Letter to Pythocles Ἐπιστολὴ πρὸς Πυθοκλέα | 270 BC | 0 |