Epicurus

Epicurean philosophy

Ancient influential 138 sayings

Sayings by Epicurus

The wise man is happy even on the rack.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 601, attributed to him by others and often debated as to its true Epicurean meaning.
Controversial Unverifiable

The one who least needs tomorrow will most gladly greet tomorrow.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 14
Controversial Unverifiable

The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever and whenever this is present, pleasure is no longer increased, but has reached its stationary maximum.

c. 300 BCE — Principal Doctrines, III
Controversial Unverifiable

It is better to suffer the inevitable than to choose the impossible.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 52
Controversial Unverifiable

Since it is not possible to get rid of the fear of death without knowledge of the universe, we cannot enjoy unmixed pleasure.

c. 300 BCE — Principal Doctrines, XII
Controversial Unverifiable

It is not wealth that makes us happy, but the use we make of it.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 203
Controversial Unverifiable

The beginning and the greatest good is prudence.

c. 300 BCE — Letter to Menoeceus
Controversial Unverifiable

The pleasure of the stomach is the root and source of all good.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 181 (from Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae)
Controversial Unverifiable

Against all things it is possible to find security, but with regard to death we all dwell in an unfortified city.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 31
Controversial Unverifiable

We should rather laugh than be sad at the misfortunes of others.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 101
Controversial Unverifiable

The greatest good is to be free from pain.

c. 300 BCE — Principal Doctrines, III
Controversial Unverifiable

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 77
Controversial Unverifiable

It is not what we have, but what we enjoy, that constitutes our abundance.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 203
Controversial Unverifiable

The greatest good is to be free from troubles of the mind.

c. 300 BCE — Principal Doctrines, III
Controversial Unverifiable

We are born once and cannot be born twice, but for all eternity must be no more. But you, who are not master of tomorrow, postpone your happiness. Life is wasted by delaying, and each one of us dies without leisure.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 14
Controversial Unverifiable

The flesh receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of futurity, procures a complete and perfect life, and we have no longer any need of unlimited time.

3rd century BCE — Letter to Menoeceus
Controversial Unverifiable

The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When that point is attained, pleasure does not further increase, but only varies in kind.

c. 300 BCE — Principal Doctrines, III
Shocking Unverifiable

It is not possible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is not possible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living a pleasant life.

c. 300 BCE — Principal Doctrines, V
Shocking Confirmed

Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship.

c. 300 BCE — Principal Doctrines, XXVII
Shocking Unverifiable

The wise man is not disturbed by the absence of friends, but by the absence of virtue.

c. 300 BCE — Fragment 205 (from Usener)
Shocking Unverifiable