“The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.”

“If a little is not enough for you, nothing is.”

“Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.”

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

When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in sensuality, as is supposed by some who are either ignorant or disagree with us or do not understand, but freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind. For it is not continuous drinkings and revelings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit.

Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.

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

Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.

The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is a mortal good, the latter and immortal one.

The fool’s life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future. He who least needs tomorrow, will most gladly greet tomorrow.

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

The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. He who is not satisfied with a little is satisfied with nothing.

We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.

The wise man neither rejects life nor fears death… just as he does not necessarily choose the largest amount of food, but, rather, the pleasantest food, so he prefers not the longest time, but the most pleasant.

You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

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

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.

“Live your life without attracting attention.”

“Freedom is the greatest fruit of self sufficiency.”

“He who has peace of mind disturbs neither himself nor another.”

“There is nothing terrible in life for the man who realizes there is nothing terrible in death.”

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~Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy. He was born on the Greek island of Samos to Athenian parents.

Quotes of Epicurus

Excellence Reporter 2021