Quotes from Epicurus

We must exercise ourselves in thte things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

if a person fights the clear evidence of his senses he will never be able to share in genuine tranquillity

Men inflict injuries from hatred, jealousy or contempt, but the wise man masters all these passions by means of reason.

We need to set our affections on one good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing.

With the Epicureans it was never science for the sake of science but always science for the sake of human happiness.

The conquest of fear, especially fear of unaccountable divine beings who meddle in nature at will, means a reduction in the sum total of human pain and suffering and opens the door to the calm acceptance of a new picture of the world—a world in which nature is autonomous and where there are ideal beings who never meddle.

We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics.

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

If you wish to make Pythocles wealthy, don't give him more money; rather, reduce his desires.

Pleasure and pain moreover supply the motives of desire and of avoidance, and the springs of conduct generally. This being so, it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only as being a means to the attainment of a life of pleasure. But that which is not itself a means to anything else, but to which all else is a means, is what the Greeks term the telos, the highest, ultimate or final Good.

The blessed and indestructible being of the divine has no concerns of its own, nor does it make trouble for others. It is not affected by feelings of anger or benevolence, because these are found where there is lack of strength.

We must laugh and philosophize and manage our households and look after our other affairs all at the same time, and never stop proclaiming the words of the true philosophy.