Epicureanism Quotes

“As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.

[Letter to William Short, 31 October 1819]”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“Don't fear the gods,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.”
― Epicurus, The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia

“I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.”
― Jack London

“If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires.”
― Epicurus

“All Hellenistic schools seem to define [wisdom] in approximately the same terms: first and foremost, as a state of perfect peace of mind. From this viewpoint, philosophy appears as a remedy for human worries, anguish, and misery brought about, for the Cynics, by social constraints and conventions; for the Epicureans, by the quest for false pleasures; for the Stoics, by the pursuit of pleasure and egoistic self-interest; and for the Skeptics, by false opinions. Whether or not they laid claim to the Socratic heritage, all Hellenistic philosophers agreed with Socrates that human beings are plunged in misery, anguish, and evil because they exist in ignorance. Evil is to be found not within things, but in the value judgments with people bring to bear upon things. People can therefore be cured of their ills only if they are persuaded to change their value judgments, and in this sense all these philosophies wanted to be therapeutic.”
― Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?

“There are many who would take my time; I shun them. There are some who share my time; I am entertained by them. There are precious few who contribute to my time; I cherish them.”
― Anton LaVey

“لذایذ دنیا برای انسان آفریده شده اند، نه انسان برای آن ها و آن ها باید به دنبال انسان باشند، نه انسان به دنبال آن ها.”
― سید محمدحسین طباطبائی, شیعه در اسلام

“Men inflict injuries from hatred, jealousy or contempt, but the wise man masters all these passions by means of reason.”
― Epicurus, The Art of Happiness

“Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands.”
― Frances Wright

“For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.”
― Francis Bacon, The Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon (Unexpurgated Edition)

“It is with this movement, with the passage and dissolution of impressions, images, sensations, that analysis leaves off—that continual vanishing away, that strange, perpetual weaving and unweaving of ourselves.”
― walter pater, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry

“Death means nothing to us”
― Epicurus, The Art of Happiness

“How little I myself really need, when people leave me alone, with the intellectual powers at work serenely. The drops of falling water, a few wild flowers with their priceless fragrance, even a few tufts of half-dead leaves, changing colour in the quiet of a room that has but light and shadow in it…”
― Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean

“- The aim of civilization is to enable us to get enjoyment out of everything.
- Well, if that is its aim, I'd rather be a savage.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“The world is wide, wide, wide, and I am young, young, young, and we’re all going to live forever!'

We were very hungry but we didn’t want to leave, so we ate there. We had chicken sandwiches; boy, the chicken of the century. Dry, wry, and tender, the dryness sort of rubbing against your tongue on soft, bouncy white bread with slivers of juicy wet pickles. Then we had some very salty potato chips and some olives stuffed with pimentos and some Indian nuts and some tiny pearl onions and some more popcorn. Then we washed the whole thing down with iced martinis and finished up with large cups of strong black coffee and cigarettes. One of my really great meals.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

“La muerte no coexiste con nosotros, pues, mientras vivimos, la muerte no existe, y cuando la muerte existe, somos nosotros los que no existimos.”
― Epicuro, Obras completas.

“We desire not only that we get something, but that we be pleased when we get it.”
― Emily A. Austin, Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life

“What [Adam] Smith took from [David] Hume’s demonstration of the limits of reason, the absurdity of superstition, and the primacy of the passions was not a lesson of Buddhist-Stoical indifference but something more like a sense of Epicurean intensity—if we are living in the material world, then let us make it our material.”
― Adam Gopnik

“In a twisted sort of way, they are their father’s trophies. Relishing in every epicurean delight life has to offer.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“There are three basic ways (with variations) in which we can imagine God's space and ours relating to one another. [...] Option one is to slide the two spaces together. God's space and ours, in this option, are basically the same; [...] God is everything, and everything is God. This option is known as "pantheism". [...] The problem with pantheism [...] is that it can't cope with evil. [...] when everything (including yourself) shares in, or lives in, divinity, there's no higher court of appeal when something bad happens. [...] Option two is to hold the spaces firmly apart. God's space and ours are a long way away from one another in this option. [...] The gods will not intervene, either to help or to harm. The right thing to do is to enjoy life as best one can. [...] That's why, when many people say they believe in God, they will often add in the same breath [...] they don't think much about God from one year's end to the next. I don't blame them. If I believed in a distant, remote God like that, I wouldn't get out of bed on a Sunday morning either. [That's] The real problem with Epicureanism in the ancient world, and Deism in ours [...] Option three is what we find within classic Judaism and Christianity. Heaven and earth are not coterminous, in this option. Nor are they separated by a great gulf. Instead, they overlap and interlock in a number of different ways.”
― N.T. Wright, Simply Christian