Top 180 Epicurus Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.”

— Epicurus

52. “A strong belief in fate is the worst kind of slavery; on the other hand, there is a comfort in the thought that God will be moved by our prayers.”

— Epicurus

53. “Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering.”

— Epicurus

54. “Let no young man delay the study of philosophy, and let no old man become weary of it; for it is never too early nor too late to care for the well-being of the soul.”

— Epicurus

55. “We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.”

— Epicurus

56. “He who needs riches least, enjoys riches most.”

— Epicurus

57. “Why are you afraid of death? Where you are, death is not. Where death is, you are not. What is it that you fear.”

— Epicurus

58. “I would rather be first in a little Iberian village than second in Rome.”

— Epicurus

59. “I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.”

— Epicurus

60. “No pleasure is evil in itself; but the means by which certain pleasures are gained bring pains many times greater than the pleasures.”

— Epicurus

61. “Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily. Epicurus taught: Pleasure, defined as freedom from pain, is the highest good.”

— Epicurus

62. “He who understands the limits of life knows that it is easy to obtain that which removes the pain of want and makes the whole of life complete and perfect. Thus he has no longer any need of things which involve struggle.”

— Epicurus

63. “The summit of pleasure is the elimination of all that gives pain.”

— Epicurus

64. “If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.”

— Epicurus

65. “Any man who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole world.”

— Epicurus

66. “We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and righteously.”

— Epicurus

67. “All friendship is desirable in itself, though it starts from the need of help.”

— Epicurus

68. “A beneficent person is like a fountain watering the earth, and spreading fertility; it is, therefore, more delightful to give than to receive.”

— Epicurus

69. “Most men are in a coma when they are at rest and mad when they act.”

— Epicurus

70. “Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death we human beings all live in an unwalled city.”

— Epicurus

71. “He who doesn’t find a little enough will find nothing enough.”

— Epicurus

72. “A man who causes fear cannot be free from fear.”

— Epicurus

73. “Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession as they torment us with their loss.”

— Epicurus

74. “Gratitude is a virtue that has commonly profit annexed to it.”

— Epicurus

75. “Thanks be to blessed Nature that she has made what is necessary easy to obtain, and what is not easy unnecessary.”

— Epicurus

76. “He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing .”

— Epicurus

77. “The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity.”

— Epicurus

78. “Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.”

— Epicurus

79. “Man was not intended by nature to live in communities and be civilized.”

— Epicurus

80. “Death is nothing to us: for that which is dissolved is without sensation; and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.”

— Epicurus

81. “Launch your boat, blessed youth, and flee at full speed from every form of culture.”

— Epicurus

82. “When someone admits one and rejects another which is equally in accordance with the appearances, it is clear that he has quitted all physical explanation and descended into myth.”

— Epicurus

83. “Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.”

— Epicurus

84. “The wise man thinks of fame just enough to avoid being despised.”

— Epicurus

85. “It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.”

— Epicurus

86. “My garden does not whet the appetite; it satisfies it. It does not provoke thirst through heedless indulgence, but slakes it by proffering its natural remedy. Amid such pleasures as these have I grown old.”

— Epicurus

87. “What men fear is not that death is annihilation but that it is not.”

— Epicurus

88. “Most beautiful is the sight of those near and dear to us when our original kinship makes us of one mind.”

— Epicurus

89. “A strict belief in fate is the worst of slavery, imposing upon our necks an everlasting lord and tyrant, whom we are to stand in awe of night and day.”

— Epicurus

90. “Never say that I have taken it, only that I have given it back.”

— Epicurus

91. “The words of that philosopher who offers no therapy for human suffering are empty and vain.”

— Epicurus

92. “The purpose of all knowledge, metaphysical as well as scientific, is to achieve what Epicurus called ataraxia, freedom from irrational fears and anxieties of all sorts – in brief, peace of mind.”

— Epicurus

93. “All other love is extinguished by self-love; beneficence, humanity, justice, philosophy, sink under it.”

— Epicurus

94. “There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.”

— Epicurus

95. “The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.”

— Epicurus

96. “Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men harming or being harmed.”

— Epicurus

97. “Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

— Epicurus

98. “The greatest fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom.”

— Epicurus

99. “This science explains to us the meaning of terms, the nature of predication, and the law of consistency and contradiction; secondly, a thorough knowledge of the facts of nature relieves us of the burden of superstition, frees us from fear of death, and shields us against the disturbing effects of ignorance, which is often in itself a cause of terrifying apprehensions;.”

— Epicurus

100. “Those desires that do not bring pain if they are not satisfied are not necessary; and they are easily thrust aside whenever to satisfy them appears difficult or likely to cause injury.”

— Epicurus