The fool’s life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.
EpicurusRead
All friendship is desirable in itself, though it starts from the need of help
Interpretation
What this quote means
Friendship is valuable in its own right, even if it often begins from a need for support.
Epicurus suggests that while friendships may initially arise from a desire for assistance or companionship, their true value lies in the inherent qualities of the relationship itself. The essence of friendship transcends the initial motivations that bring people together, highlighting that the connection formed is worthwhile, independent of its origins in necessity.
Themes
FriendshipSupportValueRelationshipConnection
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of relationships, this quote highlights the intrinsic value of friendship.
More from Epicurus
All quotes →Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live.
EpicurusRead
The wise man who has become accustomed to necessities knows better how to share with others than how to take from them, so great a treasure of self-sufficiency has he found.
EpicurusRead
We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.
EpicurusRead
I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)
EpicurusRead
Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
EpicurusRead
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Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back.
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We are wont to see friendship solely as a phenomenon of intimacy in which the friends open their hearts to each other unmolested by the world and its demands...Thus it is hard for us to understand the political relevance of friendship...But for the Greeks the essence of friendship consisted in discourse...The converse (in contrast to the intimate talk in which individuals speak about themselves), permeated though it may be by pleasure in the friend’s presence, is concerned with the common world.
Hannah ArendtRead