The fool’s life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.
EpicurusRead
The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When such pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True pleasure is achieved only by eliminating all sources of pain.
Epicurus suggests that the highest form of pleasure is experienced when all pain—physical and mental—is completely removed. In this state, pleasure is uninterrupted, and one can fully enjoy life without the distractions and sufferings that usually accompany it.
Themes
PleasurePainHappinessEpicurusPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion about happiness at a book club meeting.
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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