Epicurious > Epicurious's Quotes

“You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.”
― Woody Allen

“I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn't fit the other. I didn't care.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.”
― Rita Mae Brown

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I exist only as a whole; my only claim is to be natural, and the pleasure I feel in an action, I take as a sign that I ought to do it.”
― André Gide, The Immoralist

“There is nothing sadder than an aging hipster.”
― Lenny Bruce

“The problem with pleasure is that it needs to be intermittent in order to retain its pleasantness.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“I'm an Epicurean hedonist. The meaning of life is to enjoy my life.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Inside The Mind of an Introvert

“do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not”
― Epicurus

“The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is a mortal good, the latter and immortal one.”
― Epicurus

“It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.”
― Epicurus

“Epicurus founded a school of philosophy which placed great emphasis on the importance of pleasure. "Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life," he asserted, confirming what many had long thought, but philosophers had rarely accepted. Vulgar opinion at once imagined that the pleasure Epicurus had in mind involved a lot of money, sex, drink and debauchery (associations that survive in our use of the word 'Epicurean'). But true Epicureanism was more subtle. Epicurus led a very simple life, because after rational analysis, he had come to some striking conclusions about what actually made life pleasurable - and fortunately for those lacking a large income, it seemed that the essential ingredients of pleasure, however elusive, were not very expensive.

The first ingredient was friendship. 'Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship,' he wrote. So he bought a house near Athens where he lived in the company of congenial souls. The desire for riches should perhaps not always be understood as a simple hunger for a luxurious life, a more important motive might be the wish to be appreciated and treated nicely. We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us. Epicurus, discerning our underlying need, recognised that a handful of true friends could deliver the love and respect that even a fortune may not.

Epicurus and his friends located a second secret of happiness: freedom. In order not to have to work for people they didn't like and answer to potentially humiliating whims, they removed themselves from employment in the commercial world of Athens ('We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics'), and began what could best have been described as a commune, accepting a simpler way of life in exchange for independence. They would have less money, but would never again have to follow the commands of odious superiors.

The third ingredient of happiness was, in Epicurus's view, to lead an examined life. Epicurus was concerned that he and his friends learn to analyse their anxieties about money, illness, death and the supernatural. There are few better remedies for anxiety than thought. In writing a problem down or airing it in conversation we let its essential aspects emerge. And by knowing its character, we remove, if not the problem itself, then its secondary, aggravating characteristics: confusion, displacement, surprise. Wealth is of course unlikely ever to make anyone miserable. But the crux of Epicurus's argument is that if we have money without friends, freedom and an analysed life, we will never be truly happy. And if we have them, but are missing the fortune, we will never be unhappy.”
― Alain de Botton

“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.”
― Epicurus

“I would like Epicurus and Buddha to become one.”
― Osho, The secret of secrets

“If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.”
― Seneca

“The true Epicurean cultivates the capacity to take pleasure in simple things, while those around him chase pleasure in more things.”
― Luke Slattery, Reclaiming Epicurus

“Men inflict injuries from hatred, jealousy or contempt, but the wise man masters all these passions by means of reason.”
― Epicurus, The Art of Happiness

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”
― Seneca

“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
― Seneca, Seneca's Morals: Of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency

“Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms -- you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.”
― Seneca

“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”
― Seneca

“Associate with people who are likely to improve you.”
― Seneca

“No man was ever wise by chance”
― Seneca

“Only time can heal what reason cannot.”
― Seneca

“If you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor; if you live according what others think, you will never be rich.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“The sun also shines on the wicked.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“If I didn't care for fun and such,
I'd probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.”
― Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope