Death is nothing to us; for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
Ho thanatos ouden pros hemas; to gar dialythen anaisthetei, to d' anaisthetoun ouden pros hemas.
Philosophers
Epicurus
Born on the island of Samos around 341 BCE, Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded the Garden school in Athens and declared pleasure the highest good. Yet his pleasure was not sensual indulgence but ataraxia — tranquility of mind achieved by eliminating pain and anxiety. Inheriting Democritus's atomism and introducing the 'swerve' of atoms to ground free will, he became a founding figure of Hellenistic practical philosophy.
View this figure's profile
Epicurus's Other Quotes
Live unknown.
Bodily pain does not last without limit; intense pain is brief in duration.
The pleasant life is produced not by endless drinking and revelry but by sober reasoning.
Empty is the philosopher's argument that does not heal any human suffering.
Just as medicine is useless if it does not drive out bodily disease, so philosophy is useless if it does not drive out suffering of the soul.
Related Quotes
Bodily pain does not last without limit; intense pain is brief in duration.
-- Epicurus
The pleasant life is produced not by endless drinking and revelry but by sober reasoning.
-- Epicurus
When we say pleasure is the goal, we do not mean the pleasures of the dissolute or of sensual indulgence, but freedom from bodily pain and mental disturbance.
-- Epicurus
All the natural movements of the soul are governed by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace alone is the exception.
-- Simone Weil
Art is whatever the artist says it is.
-- Marcel Duchamp
I do not paint what I see, but what I saw.
-- Edvard Munch