Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy.
20 Notes
321 BC - 270 BC
Samos, Greece
"Wherein the wisdom and integrity of Aristotle is worthy to be observed; that having made so diligent and exquisite a history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with any vain or feigned matter; and yet on the other side hath cast all prodigious narrations which he thought worthy the recording into one book"
". I know what the reply to me might be at this point. ‘Are you trying to persuade us of the proposition that it makes no difference whether someone experiences joy or lies upon the rack and wears out his torturer? ’I could reply that Epicurus too says that the wise person, even if he is burned in the bull of Phalaris, will cry out, ‘This is pleasant, and it is nothing to me!’ Why are you surprised if I say that the goods are equal <of two people, the one reclining at a dinner party> and the other standing most bravely amidst tortures, when Epicurus"
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.18
#Quotes"You have no good reason to be astonished that this is one of our doctrines. In Epicurus there are two goods which make up that highest and blessed state: that the body be free of pain and the mind free of upset. These goods do not get bigger once they are complete: for how could what is complete grow? The body is free of pain; what can be added to this painlessness? The mind is"
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.23
#Quotes"I will point out to you even now that in Epicurus there is a division of goods which is quite similar to the one in our school. In Epicurus there are some things which he would prefer to have come to him (such as ease in the body, free from all discomfort, and a relaxation of the mind as it rejoices in the contemplation of its own goods) and others which, though he would rather, they did not happen, he nevertheless praises and approves of—like that endurance of poor health and most grievous pains which I was mentioning just now. That is how Epicurus spent that final and most blessed day of his life! For he said that he was enduring the torments of his bladder and an inflamed stomach which did not admit of any further increase in pain, but that it was a happy day despite it all. However, one cannot be having a happy day unless one is in possession of the highest good."
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.23
#Agrees"Therefore there are even in Epicurus’ theory the kind of goods which one would rather not experience but which are worth embracing and praising and treating as equal to the highest goods, since that is how things worked out. It cannot be denied that the good which put the final touch on a happy life and for which Epicurus expressed his gratitude in his last breath is equal to the highest good. Allow me, my excellent Lucilius, to s"
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.24
#Agrees"Xenocrates and Speusippus think that one can be happy even if all one has is virtue, but not that the only good is what is honorable. Epicurus also holds that when one has virtue one is happy, but that virtue itself is not sufficient for a happy life, because it is the pleasure produced by virtue that makes one happy and not the virtue itself. This is a clumsy distinction. For Epicurus also says that one never has virtue without pleasure. So, if it is always conjoined with it and is inseparable, it is also sufficient on its own. For it brings along with itself pleasure, and it is never without pleasure, even when it is on its own."
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.24
#Disagree"If Epicurus should come and say that the good ought to be in the flesh, again the explanation becomes lengthy, and you must be told what is the principal faculty within us, and what our substantial, and what our essential, nature is. Since it is not probable that the good of a snail lies in its shell, is it, then, probable that the good of man lies in his flesh ? But take your own case, Epicurus;what more masterful faculty do you yourself possess ? What is that thing within you which takes counsel, which examines into all things severally, which, after examining the flesh itself, decides that it is the principal matter"
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 141
#Quotes"Even Epicurus understands that we are by nature social beings, but having once set our good in the husk which we wear, he cannot go on and say anything inconsistent with this. For, he next insists emphatically upon the principle that we ought neither to admire nor to accept anything that is detached from the nature of the good ; and he is right in so doing. But how, then, can we still be social beings, if affection for our own children is note natural sentiment."
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 149
#Analysis"For the same reason Epicurus says that a man of sense does not engage in politics either; for he knows what the man who engages in politics has to do—since, of course, if you are going to live among men as though you were a fly among flies, what is to hinder you ? Yet, despite the fact that he knows this, he still has the audacity to say, "Let us not bring up children." But a sheep does not abandon its own offspring, nor a wolf; and yet does a man abandon his ? What do you wish us to do ? Would you have us be foolish as sheep ?"
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 151
#Analysis"So also Epicurus, when he wishes to do away with the natural fellowship of men with one another, at the same time makes use of the very principle that he is doing away with. For what does he say ? " Be not deceived, men, nor led astray, nor mistaken ; there is no natural fellowship with one another among rational beings ; believe me. Those who say the contrary are deceiving you and leading you astray with false reasons." Why do you care, then ? Allow us to be deceived."
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 373
#Disagree"So with Epicurus : he cut off everything that characterizes a man, the head of a household, a citizen, and a friend, but he did not succeed in cutting off the desires of human beings ; for that he could not do, any more than the easy-going Academics are able to cast away or blind their own sense-perceptions, although they have made every effort to do"
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 377
#Disagree"With regard to most pains, furthermore, let this saying of Epicurus come to your aid, that ‘pain is neither unendurable nor everlasting, if you keep its limits in mind and do not add to it through your own imagination’."
Book & Page: Marcus Aurelius Penguin, p.67
#Quotes"'Epictetus says, ‘When I was ill, my conversation was not devoted to the sufferings of my body, nor’, he says, ‘ did I chatter about such matters to those who visited me, but continued to discuss the main elements of natural philosophy as before, and this point especially, how it is that the mind, while being aware of the agitations in our poor flesh, is unperturbed and preserves its specific good. Nor’, he says, ‘ did I allow the doctors to assume grand airs, as though they were engaged in something important, but my life proceeded as well and happily as ever.’ So act as he did when you were ill."
Book & Page: Marcus Aurelius Penguin p.91
#Agrees"Thou hast, then, set before thine eyes something like a scheme of human happiness—wealth, rank, power, glory, pleasure. Now Epicurus, from a sole regard to these considerations, with some consistency concluded the highest good to be pleasure, because all the other objects seem to bring some delight to the soul. But to return to human pursuits and aims: man's mind seeks to recover its proper good, in spite of the mistiness of its recollection, but, like a drunken man, knows not by what path to return home."
Book & Page: Boethius BOOK V.
#Quotes"Epicurus, on the other hand, did not introduce a single quotation into any of the three hundred volumes that he left behind him."
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p.51
#Facts"Epicurus, when dying, as he tells us, in the torments of an acute colic, derived his sole consolation from the beauty of the teachings that he left to the world. Can we believe that he would have felt as much satisfaction in a family of well-born and well reared children, had he had one, as he did in the authorship of his precious writings?"
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p.159
#Facts"And Epicurus, who taught irreligion and luxury, was most scrupulous and laborious in his way of life. He wrote to a friend that he lived on nothing but coarse brown bread and water, and asked him to send a little cheese in case he might want to make a sumptuous meal. Can it perhaps be true that if we are to be absolutely good, it must be by an occult, natural, and universal quality, without rules, without reason, and without examples? The excesses w"
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p.83
#Facts"This is what Epicurus said, at the beginning of his letter to Meniceus: 'Let not the youngest shun philosophy or the oldest growth weary of it. To do so is equivalent to saying either that the time for a happy life has not yet come or that it is already past.'"
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p73
#Quotes"Epicurus says that a wise man can never pass over to a contrary state. The opinion that I hold is quite the reverse, that a man who has once been a fool will never afterwards be wise."
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p267
#Quotes"Or because I have no congenial company. For I say with Epicurus that one should not so much consider what one eats as with whom one eats it."
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p393
#Quotes". I know what the reply to me might be at this point. ‘Are you trying to persuade us of the proposition that it makes no difference whether someone experiences joy or lies upon the rack and wears out his torturer? ’I could reply that Epicurus too says that the wise person, even if he is burned in the bull of Phalaris, will cry out, ‘This is pleasant, and it is nothing to me!’ Why are you surprised if I say that the goods are equal <of two people, the one reclining at a dinner party> and the other standing most bravely amidst tortures, when Epicurus"
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.18
#Quotes"You have no good reason to be astonished that this is one of our doctrines. In Epicurus there are two goods which make up that highest and blessed state: that the body be free of pain and the mind free of upset. These goods do not get bigger once they are complete: for how could what is complete grow? The body is free of pain; what can be added to this painlessness? The mind is"
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.23
#Quotes"If Epicurus should come and say that the good ought to be in the flesh, again the explanation becomes lengthy, and you must be told what is the principal faculty within us, and what our substantial, and what our essential, nature is. Since it is not probable that the good of a snail lies in its shell, is it, then, probable that the good of man lies in his flesh ? But take your own case, Epicurus;what more masterful faculty do you yourself possess ? What is that thing within you which takes counsel, which examines into all things severally, which, after examining the flesh itself, decides that it is the principal matter"
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 141
#Quotes"With regard to most pains, furthermore, let this saying of Epicurus come to your aid, that ‘pain is neither unendurable nor everlasting, if you keep its limits in mind and do not add to it through your own imagination’."
Book & Page: Marcus Aurelius Penguin, p.67
#Quotes"Thou hast, then, set before thine eyes something like a scheme of human happiness—wealth, rank, power, glory, pleasure. Now Epicurus, from a sole regard to these considerations, with some consistency concluded the highest good to be pleasure, because all the other objects seem to bring some delight to the soul. But to return to human pursuits and aims: man's mind seeks to recover its proper good, in spite of the mistiness of its recollection, but, like a drunken man, knows not by what path to return home."
Book & Page: Boethius BOOK V.
#Quotes"This is what Epicurus said, at the beginning of his letter to Meniceus: 'Let not the youngest shun philosophy or the oldest growth weary of it. To do so is equivalent to saying either that the time for a happy life has not yet come or that it is already past.'"
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p73
#Quotes"Epicurus says that a wise man can never pass over to a contrary state. The opinion that I hold is quite the reverse, that a man who has once been a fool will never afterwards be wise."
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p267
#Quotes"Or because I have no congenial company. For I say with Epicurus that one should not so much consider what one eats as with whom one eats it."
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p393
#Quotes"I will point out to you even now that in Epicurus there is a division of goods which is quite similar to the one in our school. In Epicurus there are some things which he would prefer to have come to him (such as ease in the body, free from all discomfort, and a relaxation of the mind as it rejoices in the contemplation of its own goods) and others which, though he would rather, they did not happen, he nevertheless praises and approves of—like that endurance of poor health and most grievous pains which I was mentioning just now. That is how Epicurus spent that final and most blessed day of his life! For he said that he was enduring the torments of his bladder and an inflamed stomach which did not admit of any further increase in pain, but that it was a happy day despite it all. However, one cannot be having a happy day unless one is in possession of the highest good."
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.23
#Agrees"Therefore there are even in Epicurus’ theory the kind of goods which one would rather not experience but which are worth embracing and praising and treating as equal to the highest goods, since that is how things worked out. It cannot be denied that the good which put the final touch on a happy life and for which Epicurus expressed his gratitude in his last breath is equal to the highest good. Allow me, my excellent Lucilius, to s"
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.24
#Agrees"'Epictetus says, ‘When I was ill, my conversation was not devoted to the sufferings of my body, nor’, he says, ‘ did I chatter about such matters to those who visited me, but continued to discuss the main elements of natural philosophy as before, and this point especially, how it is that the mind, while being aware of the agitations in our poor flesh, is unperturbed and preserves its specific good. Nor’, he says, ‘ did I allow the doctors to assume grand airs, as though they were engaged in something important, but my life proceeded as well and happily as ever.’ So act as he did when you were ill."
Book & Page: Marcus Aurelius Penguin p.91
#Agrees"Xenocrates and Speusippus think that one can be happy even if all one has is virtue, but not that the only good is what is honorable. Epicurus also holds that when one has virtue one is happy, but that virtue itself is not sufficient for a happy life, because it is the pleasure produced by virtue that makes one happy and not the virtue itself. This is a clumsy distinction. For Epicurus also says that one never has virtue without pleasure. So, if it is always conjoined with it and is inseparable, it is also sufficient on its own. For it brings along with itself pleasure, and it is never without pleasure, even when it is on its own."
Book & Page: Seneca pdf p.24
#Disagree"So also Epicurus, when he wishes to do away with the natural fellowship of men with one another, at the same time makes use of the very principle that he is doing away with. For what does he say ? " Be not deceived, men, nor led astray, nor mistaken ; there is no natural fellowship with one another among rational beings ; believe me. Those who say the contrary are deceiving you and leading you astray with false reasons." Why do you care, then ? Allow us to be deceived."
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 373
#Disagree"So with Epicurus : he cut off everything that characterizes a man, the head of a household, a citizen, and a friend, but he did not succeed in cutting off the desires of human beings ; for that he could not do, any more than the easy-going Academics are able to cast away or blind their own sense-perceptions, although they have made every effort to do"
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 377
#Disagree"Epicurus, on the other hand, did not introduce a single quotation into any of the three hundred volumes that he left behind him."
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p.51
#Facts"Epicurus, when dying, as he tells us, in the torments of an acute colic, derived his sole consolation from the beauty of the teachings that he left to the world. Can we believe that he would have felt as much satisfaction in a family of well-born and well reared children, had he had one, as he did in the authorship of his precious writings?"
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p.159
#Facts"And Epicurus, who taught irreligion and luxury, was most scrupulous and laborious in his way of life. He wrote to a friend that he lived on nothing but coarse brown bread and water, and asked him to send a little cheese in case he might want to make a sumptuous meal. Can it perhaps be true that if we are to be absolutely good, it must be by an occult, natural, and universal quality, without rules, without reason, and without examples? The excesses w"
Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p.83
#Facts"Even Epicurus understands that we are by nature social beings, but having once set our good in the husk which we wear, he cannot go on and say anything inconsistent with this. For, he next insists emphatically upon the principle that we ought neither to admire nor to accept anything that is detached from the nature of the good ; and he is right in so doing. But how, then, can we still be social beings, if affection for our own children is note natural sentiment."
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 149
#Analysis"For the same reason Epicurus says that a man of sense does not engage in politics either; for he knows what the man who engages in politics has to do—since, of course, if you are going to live among men as though you were a fly among flies, what is to hinder you ? Yet, despite the fact that he knows this, he still has the audacity to say, "Let us not bring up children." But a sheep does not abandon its own offspring, nor a wolf; and yet does a man abandon his ? What do you wish us to do ? Would you have us be foolish as sheep ?"
Book & Page: Empictetus pdf 151
#Analysis