The pleasant life is produced not by endless drinking and revelry but by sober reasoning.
Ou gar potous kai komous syneirous... all' ho nephalios logismos.
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.
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Epicurus's Other Quotes
Death is nothing to us; for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
Live unknown.
Bodily pain does not last without limit; intense pain is brief in duration.
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
The wise man is free from passions, not because he does not feel, but because his judgments are correct.
-- Chrysippus of Soli
As in all things, we suffer from excess in reading too. Many books are a burden, not an ornament.
-- Seneca
Death is nothing to us; for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
-- 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
Tranquility arises for human beings from moderation in enjoyment and a balanced life.
-- Democritus
He who would be tranquil should not undertake too many things, either private or public.
-- Democritus