On Happiness – Epicurus

1. A happy and eternal being has no trouble himself

and brings no trouble upon any other being; hence he

is exempt from movements of anger and partiality, for

every such movement implies weakness.

2. Death is nothing to us; for the body, when it has

been resolved into its elements, has no feeling, and that

which has no feeling is nothing to us.

3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the

removal of all pain. When pleasure is present, so long

as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or

of mind or of both together.

4. Continuous pain does not last long in the body; on

the contrary, pain, if extreme, is present a short time,

and even that degree of pain which barely outweighs

pleasure in the body does not last for many days

together. Illnesses of long duration even permit of an

excess of pleasure over pain in the body.

5. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living

wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live

Wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly.

Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for lives well and justly, it is impossible for him to ligh

pleasant life.

6. In order to obtain security from other people any

means whatever of procuring this was a natural good

7. Some people have sought to become famous and

renowned, thinking that thus they would make

themselves secure against their fellow-humans. If, then,

the life of such persons really was secure, they attained

natural good; if, however, it was insecure, they have

not attained the end which by nature’s own prompting

they originally sought.

8. No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which

produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many

times greater than the pleasures themselves.

9. If all pleasure had been capable of accumulation, – if

this had gone on not only be recurrences in time, but

all over the frame or, at any rate, over the principal

parts of human nature, there would never have been

any difference between one pleasure and another, as in

fact there is.

10. If the objects which are productive of pleasures to

profligate persons really freed them from fears of the

mind, – the fears, I mean, inspired by celestial and

atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death, the fear of

pain; if, further, they taught them to limit their desires,

we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for they, would then be Fled with pleasures to

prerflowing on all sides and would be exempt from 59

pain, whether of body or mind, that is, from alf en

11. If we had never been molested by alarms at

celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by the

misgiving that death somehow affects us, nor by

neglect of the proper limits of pains and desires, we

should have had no need to study natural science.

12. It would be impossible to banish fear on matters of

the highest importance, if a person did not know the

nature of the whole universe, but lived in dread of

what the legends tell us. Hence without the study of

nature there was no enjoyment of unmixed pleasures.

13. There would be no advantage in providing security

against our fellow humans, so long as we were alarmed

by occurrences over our heads or beneath the earth or

in general by whatever happens in the boundless

universe.

14. When tolerable security against our fellow humans

is attained, then on a basis of power sufficient to afford

supports and of material prosperity arises in most

genuine form the security of a quiet private life

withdrawn from the multitude.

15. Nature’s wealth at once has its bounds and is easy

to procure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an

infinite distance.

16. Fortune but seldom interferes with the wise

person; his greatest and highest interests have been,

are, and will be, directed by reason throughout thé

course of his life.

17. The just person enjoys the greatest peace of mind

while the unjust is full of the utmost disquietude.

18. Pleasure in the body admits no increase when onge

the pain of want has been removed; after that it only

admits of variation. The limit of pleasure in the mind.

however, is reached when we reflect on the things

themselves and their congeners which cause the mind

the greatest alarms.

19. Unlimited time and limited time afford an equal

amount of pleasure, if we measure the limits of that

pleasure by reason.

20. The body receives as unlimited the limits of

pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But

the mind, grasping in thought what the end and limit of

the body is, and banishing the terrors of futurity,

procures a complete and perfect life, and has no longer

any need of unlimited time. Nevertheless it does not

shun pleasure, and even in the hour of death, when

ushered out of existence by circumstances, the mind

does not lack enjoyment of the best life.

21. He who understands the limits of life knows how

easy it is to procure enough to remove the pain of want

and make the whole of life complete and perfect. hience hie has maVens any need of things which are

Horto be won save by labour and conflict.

42. We must take into account as the end all that really

Pwists and all clear evidence of sense to which we retar

our opinions; for otherwise everything will be fulldre

uncertainty and confusion.

23. If you fight against all your sensations, you will

have no standard to which to refer, and thus no means

of judging even those judgments which you pronounce

false.

24. If you reject absolutely any single sensation

without stopping to discriminate with respect to that

which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion

and that which is already present, whether in sensation

or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the

mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of

your sensations by your groundless belief and so you

will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. If in

your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as

true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which

does not, you will not escape error, as you will be

maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case

of judging between right and wrong opinion.

25. If you do not on every separate occasion refer each

of your actions to the end prescribed by nature, but

instead of this in the act of choice or avoidance swerve

aside to some other end, your acts will not be

consistent with your theories.

26. All such desires as lead to no pain when they

remain ungratined are unnecessary, and the longingi,

easily got rid of, when the thine desired is difficultip

procure or when the desires seem likely to produce

harm.

27. Of all the means which are procured by wisdom tp

ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far

the most important is the acquisition of friends,

28. The same conviction which inspires confidence

that nothing we have to fear is eternal or even of long

duration, also enables us to see that even in our limited

conditions of life nothing enhances our security so

much as friendship.

29. Of our desires some are natural and necessary

others are natural, but not necessary; others, again, are

neither natural nor necessary, but are due to illusory

opinion.

30. Those natural desires which entail no pain when

not gratified, though their objects are vehemently

pursued, are also due to illusory opinion; and when

they are not got rid of, it is not because of their own

nature, but because of the person’s illusory opinion.

31. Natural justice is a symbol or expression of

usefulness, to prevent one person from harming or

being harmed by another.

42. Those animals “histh are incapable of making.

goronants with or sutter thef, to the end thar they fay

neither inflict nor suffer harm, are without either

justice or in justice: And those tribes which either could

jot of would not form mutual covenants to the same

end are in like case.

33. There never was an absolute justice, but only an

agreement made in reciprocal association in whatever

localities now and again from time to time, providing

against the infliction or suffering of harm.

34. Injustice is not in itself an evil, but only in its

consequence, viz. the terror which is excited by

apprehension that those appointed to punish such

offences will discover the injustice.

35. It is impossible for the person who secretly violates

any article of the social compact to feel confident that

he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already

escaped ten thousand times; for right on to the end of

his life he is never sure he will not be detected.

36. Taken generally, justice is the same for all, to wit,

something found useful in mutual association; but in its

application to particular cases of locality or conditions

of whatever kind, it varies under different

circumstances.

37. Among the things accounted just by conventional

law, whatever in the needs of mutual association is

attested to be useful, is thereby stamped as just,

whether or not it be the same for all; and in case any law is made and does not prove suitable to the

law’twiness 07 murual association, thich this is To hora,

JuSt. And Should che usefulness which is expresal”»)

the law vary and only for a time correspond with fl

prior conception, nevertheless for the fire being it ina

just, so long as we do not trouble ourselves about

empty words, but look simply at the facts.

38. Where without any change in circumstances the

conventional laws, when judged by their consequences,

were seen not to correspond with the notion of justice,

such laws were not really just; but wherever the laws

have ceased to be useful in consequence of a change in

circumstances, in that case the laws were for the time

being just when they were useful for the mutual

association of the citizens, and subsequently ceased to

be just when they ceased to be useful.

39. He who best knew how to meet fear of external

foes made into one family all the creatures he could;

and those he could not, he at any rate did not treat as

aliens; and where he found even this impossible, he

avoided all association, and, so far as was useful, kept

them at a distance.

40. Those who were best able to provide themselves

with the means of security against their neighbours,

being thus in possession of the surest guarantee, passed

the most agreeable life in each other’s society; and their

enjoyment of the fullest intimacy was such that, if one

of them died before his time, the survivors did not

mourn his death as if it called for sympathy.