Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)

Epicurus (c.342–270 BCE) was a Ancient Greek philosopher of the Hellenistic age. He is the founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy, which sought happiness through simple living. His importance to science lies in his adapting and promulgating Democritean atomism.

Born on the Greek island of Samos, Epicurus began teaching philosophy at the age of 32. He settled in Athens in 306 BCE and tutored students in his ‘Garden’ near the city of Athens. The English word “epicure,” denoting a person who loves good food and drink, is taken from Epicurus and the Epicureans.

Epicurus was mostly known as being the creator of ‘Epicureanism.’ a popular belief in Hellenistic Philosophy over 600 years. While Epicurus was a hedonist given that he believed that the goal of all activity was pleasure, he had an austere definition of it—for Epicurus, the pleasure was merely the absence of discomfort, pain, or fear. Epicurus advocated forgoing many short-term pleasures and instead focusing on the overall pleasure and pain distribution over a lifetime. More pleasurable than a life devoted to short-term pleasure was one in which one moderated one’s desires without pursuing wealth or glory.

Epicurus’s literary output was substantial—Diogenes Laërtius, his principal biographer, inventories some 40 works. One of them, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things,) comprises 37 books. All that has survived is what seems to be an abridged version of Epicurus’s philosophy in the form of three letters, a few fragments, and a compilation of his more essential aphorisms entitled Major Opinions.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Epicurus

The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.—Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
Epicurus
Topics: Talent, Problems, Difficulty, Opposition, Glory, Endurance

The flesh endures the storms of the present alone, the mind those of the past and future as well.
Epicurus
Topics: Eating, The Present, Food

A person cannot have a pleasant life unless he lives prudently, honorably and justly, nor can he live prudently, honorably and justly without a pleasant life. A person cannot possibly have a pleasant life unless he happens to live prudently, honorably and justly.
Epicurus

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.
Epicurus
Topics: Confidence

It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.
Epicurus
Topics: Friendship, Confidence, Friends and Friendship

No pleasure is intrinsically bad, but what causes pleasure is accompanied by many things that disturb pleasure.
Epicurus

Of all the things that wisdom provides for the happiness of a whole life, the most important by far is acquiring friends.
Epicurus

Injustice is not intrinsically bad: people regard it as evil only because it is accompanied by the fear that they will not escape the officials who are appointed to punish evil actions.
Epicurus

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
Epicurus

Death, the most dreaded of all evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.
Epicurus
Topics: Death

Vast power and great wealth may, up to a certain point, grant us security as far as individual men are concerned, but the security of men as a whole depends on the tranquility of their souls and their freedom from ambition.
Epicurus

A man who causes fear cannot be free from fear.
Epicurus
Topics: Fear

Justice has no independent existence: it results from mutual contracts, and we find it in force wherever there is a mutual agreement to guard against doing injury or sustaining it.
Epicurus

Pleasure is the first good. It is the beginning of every choice and every aversion. It is the absence of pain in the body and of troubles in the soul.
Epicurus
Topics: Pleasure

Happiness is man’s greatest aim in life. Tranquility and rationality are the cornerstones of happiness.
Epicurus

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Epicurus
Topics: Death, Wisdom

What is happy and imperishable suffers no trouble itself, nor does it cause trouble to anything. So it is not subject to feelings either of anger or of partiality, for these feelings exist only in what is weak.
Epicurus

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
Epicurus
Topics: Happiness

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
Epicurus

The summit of pleasure is the elimination of all that gives pain.
Epicurus
Topics: Blessings

A strict belief in fate is the worst kind of slavery; on the other hand there is comfort in the thought that God will be moved by our prayers.
Epicurus
Topics: Fate, Destiny

The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.
Epicurus
Topics: Future, The Present, Independence

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth is unhappy, though he is master of the world.
Epicurus
Topics: Unhappiness, Blessings, Gratitude, Appreciation, Happiness

Any device whatever by which one frees himself from fear is a natural good.
Epicurus
Topics: Fear, Anxiety

When we have only a little we should be satisfied; for this reason, that those best enjoy abundance who are contented with the least.
Epicurus
Topics: Poverty

Death is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved has no feeling whatsoever, and that which has no feeling means nothing to us.
Epicurus

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.
Epicurus

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.
Epicurus

The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live.
Epicurus
Topics: Action

Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.
Epicurus
Topics: Love

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