The foolβs life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.
EpicurusRead
If you would enjoy real freedom, you must be the slave of Philosophy.
Interpretation
True freedom comes from a deep understanding and adherence to philosophical principles.
This quote by Epicurus emphasizes that genuine freedom is not merely about doing what one wants but requires a commitment to philosophical thought and understanding. By dedicating oneself to the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge, individuals can attain a more profound sense of liberty that is grounded in rationality and virtue.
In practice
In a university lecture on ethics.
The foolβs life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.
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.
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.
We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.
I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)
Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.
Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.
What good is a character who's always winking at the audience to let them in on the secret?
A man's most open actions have a secret side to them.
The relationship between violence and nonviolence in this country is interesting. The fact of the matter is, you know, people do respond to riots. The 1968 Housing Act was in large response to riots that broke out after Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. They cited these as an actual inspiration.
Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization. Wilderness was never a homogenous raw material. It was very diverse. The differences in the product are known as cultures. The rich diversity of the worlds cultures reflects a corresponding diversity. In the wilds that gave them birth.
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