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

Not in Epicurus’ surviving texts (the atlas’s Greek and Hicks texts of the three Letters and the Principal Doctrines; no ‘glory’, ‘pilot’ or ‘storm’ in this sense) nor in the Vatican Sayings. Both sentences are in ‘An Essay in Vindication of Epicurus and his Doctrine’, in Epicurus’s Morals (London, 1712), p. 175, whose title page says the essay was ‘Written by Monsieur St. Evremont. And made English by Mr. Johnson’; there they are separated by several sentences, in the essayist’s own voice: ‘but the greater the Difficulty the more Glory in surmounting it’ and, a few lines on, ‘Skilful Pilots gain their Reputation from Storms and Tempests.’ The French original was not identified here, so the credit to Saint-Évremond is the book’s. The Rule of Life (Edinburgh, 1766), p. 16, prints the two sentences as one maxim with the source ‘Epic. mor.’, the title of the 1712 book. In 1833 a memoir calls it ‘the doctrine of Epicurmor’, the citation run together into a name, and nineteenth-century dictionaries of quotations (Ballou’s Treasury of Thought, Edwards’s Dictionary of Thoughts) sign it ‘—Epicurus’, which is how it still circulates. The same wording is also credited to Epictetus (see the related entry).

1. 1712Earliest found · credited to Saint-Évremond (as the essay’s author)An English essay defending Epicurus has both sentences, apart, in the essayist’s own argument that moderation amid riches is harder, and so more glorious, than in poverty.but the greater the Difficulty the more Glory in surmounting it … Skilful Pilots gain their Reputation from Storms and Tempests.’An Essay in Vindication of Epicurus and his Doctrine’, ‘written by Monsieur St. Evremont, and made English by Mr. Johnson’, in Epicurus’s Morals, translated from the Greek by John Digby (London: Sam. Briscoe, 1712), p. 175. Checked on a page scan. Source
2. 1766Credited to Epic. mor. (Epicurus’s Morals)An anthology of moral sentences prints the two sentences together as one maxim, citing ‘Epic. mor.’: the title of the 1712 book, easily read as Epicurus.The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. Epic. mor.The Rule of Life, or Maxims of Wisdom: a collection of select moral sentences (Edinburgh: printed by Wal. Ruddiman junior, for J. Wilson and K. Robertson, 1766), ‘Of Temperance, Prudence, and Fortitude’, p. 16. Checked on a page scan. Source
3. 1833Credited to Epicurmor (from ‘Epic. mor.’)A memoir by an anonymous ‘Sexagenarian’ calls it ‘the doctrine of Epicurmor’, the citation ‘Epic. mor.’ run together into a name, beside sayings of Plutarch and Seneca.the doctrine of Epicurmor, that “The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it,” and that “Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests”Latter Struggles in the Journey of Life; or, The Afternoon of My Days, being the fourth book of My Pilgrimage, from the Retrospections of a Sexagenarian (1833), p. 178. Checked on a page scan. Source
4. 1881Spread · credited to EpicurusMaturin M. Ballou’s Treasury of Thought, a popular encyclopaedia of quotations, signs the combined maxim ‘—Epicurus’.The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. —Epicurus.Maturin M. Ballou, Treasury of Thought: forming an encyclopædia of quotations from ancient and modern authors, seventh edition (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1881). Checked in the text of a page scan, not the image. Source
5. 1891Spread · credited to EpicurusTryon Edwards’s A Dictionary of Thoughts prints the combined maxim under ‘Endurance’, signed ‘—Epicurus’.The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.—Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.—Epicurus.Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts: being a cyclopedia of laconic quotations from the best authors, both ancient and modern (New York: Cassell Publishing Company, 1891). Checked in the text of a page scan, not the image. Source

Quoted as Epicurus’ encouragement in hard times. The two sentences come from an English essay of 1712, ‘In Vindication of Epicurus’, printed at the end of a book titled Epicurus’s Morals and credited there to Saint-Évremond. A collection of moral sentences in 1766 printed the two together under the abbreviation ‘Epic. mor.’, the book’s title, which later readers took for Epicurus himself.

Hardship is the test that makes achievement count, as a pilot’s skill shows only in a storm.

Taken as Epicurus’ praise of struggle. His own ethics point the other way: the goal is freedom from pain and disturbance, and the Letter to Menoeceus advises getting used to simple things so as not to fear fortune. The essayist, defending Epicurus in 1712, argues that moderation is harder and more glorious amid riches than in poverty.

• ShortenedThe greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. The first sentence alone, as in A Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker (1852) and many later lists.

Courage, Wisdom

• The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. (misattributed) Epictetus
• No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. Epictetus
• Dig within. Within is the wellspring of good; and it will ever bubble up, if you will ever dig. (paraphrase) Marcus Aurelius
• Stones in my path? I keep them all. One day I will build a castle. (misattributed) Fernando Pessoa
• It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. (misattributed) Mark Twain

• archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_epicuruss-morals-trans_epicurus_1712 (Epicurus’s Morals, 1712, p. 175, page image)
• archive.org/details/epicurussmorals00descgoog (Epicurus’s Morals, 1712, second scan: title page and OCR)
• archive.org/details/bub_gb_KFktZ7vNnecC (The Rule of Life, Edinburgh, 1766, p. 16, page image)
• archive.org/details/latterstruggles00millgoog (Latter Struggles in the Journey of Life, 1833, OCR)
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Epictetus#Misattributed (the same wording credited to Epictetus, traced to Epicurus’s Morals, 1712, p. 175)
• archive.org full-text search for “greater the difficulty the more glory” (23 October 2026): 319 hits, the oldest the 1712 book, then The Rule of Life from 1766, most later ones signed Epicurus
• archive.org/details/dictionaryofthou00edwa (Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, OCR)

“The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.” Attributed to Epicurus. No. 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. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/the-greater-the-difficulty-the-more-glory-in-surmounting-it/ (checked 23 October 2026).

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