“Death is nothing to us. For what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.”
Epicurus · Epicureanism
deathmindhappiness
Paraphrase or translation
Philosopher
Last reviewed:
Epicurus
341–270 BCE · Epicureanism · Ancient
Epicurus was born in 341 BCE on Samos, taught in Athens, and died in 270. His school was a garden, open to women and to enslaved people in a way the Academy was not, and the aim was a pleasant life understood as freedom from bodily pain and from turmoil in the mind. He was an atomist.
Read more
The world is particles and void, the gods are not running your affairs, and death is the dispersal of the soul, hence nothing that can be felt. Pleasure is the starting point of choice, and the pleasures he ranks highest are the stable ones: plain food, friendship, and the removal of vain desires. Almost all of this reaches us through three letters and a set of principal doctrines preserved by Diogenes Laertius, plus later reports and Lucretius's Latin poem.
'Epicurean' as a synonym for luxury was already a slander in antiquity. He argued for pleasure and lived, by the school's own account, on bread and water. The hard question inside the school is whether friendship is valued for security or for itself.
Start here
The Letter to Menoeceus, Diogenes Laertius 10.122–135.
It is short, it is his, and it corrects the luxury myth in his own words before you meet the slogans.
Quotations
“Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion.”
Epicurus · Epicureanism
happinessethics
Paraphrase or translation
“Of all the things wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship.”
Epicurus · Epicureanism
lovehappiness
Paraphrase or translation
“It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.”
Epicurus · Epicureanism
happinessethicsvirtue
Paraphrase or translation
“Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.”
Epicurus · Epicureanism
knowledgehappinessmind
Paraphrase or translation
Key ideas
Death is nothing to us
Where death is, there is no sensation, so being dead is not a harm you will experience.
Pleasure as tranquillity
The pleasure that guides a wise life is the absence of pain and disturbance, not a series of luxuries.
Friendship
Of the things wisdom secures for a complete life, he ranks friendship far above the rest.
Atoms and unanxious gods
A physics of atoms is supposed to cancel the fears that ruin ordinary pleasure.
Major works
Letter to Menoeceus (c. 300 BCE)
The main surviving statement of his ethics, preserved in Diogenes Laertius, book 10.
Principal Doctrines (c. 300 BCE)
Forty short maxims, also preserved by Diogenes Laertius, including the claim about friendship.
Influences
- Democritus
Influenced
- Lucretius
- Seneca
Common misreadings
- An Epicurean life, in his own letters, is frugal, not a banquet.
- The death argument does not say that grief is silly or that a shortened life does not matter to the living.
Famous lines Epicurus never said
None of the lines this library files for Epicurus is marked Questionable or Misattributed. That is only a fact about these cards. It is not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
FAQ
What is the best book to start with?
The Letter to Menoeceus, Diogenes Laertius 10.122–135. It is short, it is his, and it corrects the luxury myth in his own words before you meet the slogans.
What is the most famous quote?
This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Epicurus that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “Death is nothing to us. For what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.” (Letter to Menoeceus, in Diogenes Laertius 10.124–125, Paraphrase or translation).
What is the most misquoted line?
None of the lines this library files for Epicurus is marked Misattributed or Questionable. That is a fact about these cards, not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
What is one key idea, in a sentence?
Death is nothing to us: Where death is, there is no sensation, so being dead is not a harm you will experience.