Update
Show Summary Details

Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 28 April 2025

Epicurus 341–271 bc
Greek philosopher 

  1. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are death is not come, and when death is come, we are not.
    Diogenes Laertius Lives of Eminent Philosophers bk. 10
  2. Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.
    Diogenes Laertius Lives of Eminent Philosophers bk. 10, sect. 148
  3. It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confidence of their help.
    Whitney J. Oates The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers: The complete extant writings of Epicurus (1940) Fragments [Vatican Collection] no. 34