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.
Genuine
Yes. In Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 12 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.143); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims.
Found word for word by program in the Greek original and in R. D. Hicks’ English translation (1925).
- Work
- Principal Doctrines (Κύριαι Δόξαι), 270 BC
- Where
- Principal Doctrines 12 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.143); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims
- Found at
- Paragraph 12 of the Greek text, 12 of the English
- Translation
- R. D. Hicks, 1925
Researched by AI; checked by program against the full text on 31 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
On the page
[…] If we had never been molested by alarms at celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by the misgiving that death somehow affects us, nor by neglect of the proper limits of pains and desires, we should have had no need to study natural science.
[XI.] Εἰ μηθὲν ἡμᾶς αἱ τῶν μετεώρων ὑποψίαι ἠνώχλουν καὶ αἱ περὶ θανάτου, μή ποτε πρὸς ἡμᾶς ᾖ τι, ἔτι τε τὸ μὴ κατανοεῖν τοὺς ὅρους τῶν ἀλγηδόνων καὶ τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν, οὐκ ἂν προσεδεόμεθα φυσιολογίας.
12. 143. 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.
[XII.] Οὐκ ἦν τὸ φοβούμενον λύειν ὑπὲρ τῶν κυριωτάτων μὴ κατειδότα τίς ἡ τοῦ σύμπαντος φύσις, ἀλλʼ ὑποπτευόμενόν τι τῶν κατὰ τοὺς μύθους· ὥστε οὐκ ἦν ἄνευ φυσιολογίας ἀκεραίους τὰς ἡδονὰς ἀπολαμβάνειν.
13. There would be no advantage in providing security against our fellow-men, so long as we were alarmed by occurrences over our heads or beneath the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless universe.
[XIII.] Οὐθὲν ὄφελος ἦν τὴν κατʼ ἀνθρώπους ἀσφάλειαν κατασκευάζεσθαι τῶν ἄνωθεν ὑπόπτων καθεστώτων καὶ τῶν ὑπὸ γῆς καὶ ἁπλῶς τῶν ἐν τῷ ἀπείρῳ.
14. […]
[XIV.] Τῆς ἀσφαλείας τῆς ἐξ ἀνθρώπων γενομένης μέχρι τινὸς δυνάμει τε ἐξερειστικὴ καὶ εὐπορίᾳ εἰλικρινεστάτη γίνεται ἡ ἐκ τῆς ἡσυχίας καὶ ἐκχωρήσεως τῶν πολλῶν ἀσφάλεια.
The scene
The twelfth maxim connects natural inquiry with freedom from fear. The preceding maxim says that without anxiety about celestial phenomena, death and the limits of pain and desire, there would have been no need for natural science. The next warns that security from other people is insufficient while one remains terrified by events in the sky, under the earth or elsewhere in the universe.
What it means
Understanding nature removes the terrors fostered by myths; without that freedom from fear, enjoyment remains troubled.
Often misread
This does not say that a person must master every scientific subject before feeling any pleasure. The target is fear about the most important matters, and the pleasure at issue is enjoyment unmixed with those terrors.
Topics
Related 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.
- 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.
- 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 …
- It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. Epictetus
- No scientific statement is final: it is a likely formulation of observation and analysis. Carl Gustav Jung
Sources
Cite it
Epicurus, Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 12 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.143); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims, translated by R. D. Hicks (1925). Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/without-study-of-nature-no-unmixed-pleasure/ (31 October 2026).
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