Philosophers I love- Epicurus

One who denies philosophy denies life. People with only materialistic understanding and literal senses would never be able to penetrate deep in to the mighty ocean of philosophy weaved through conscious efforts. I hereby decide to share one of the greatest philosophers one by one and their quotes.

His parents, Neocles and Chaerestrate, both Athenian-born, and his father a citizen, had emigrated to the Athenian settlement. He professed the idea of fearless life of wisdom and philosophy. He said that one must not fear things like death and must always pursue methods of true happiness. He started a school of philosophy called  Epicureanism. He suffered from kidney stones which took his life at the age of 72. Here is a very touching para from his Wikipedia page-

"At the time of death despite the prolonged pain involved, he wrote to Idomeneus:

I have written this letter to you on a happy day to me, which is also the last day of my life. For I have been attacked by a painful inability to urinate, and also dysentery, so violent that nothing can be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my mind, which comes from the recollection of all my philosophical contemplation, counterbalances all these afflictions. And I beg you to take care of the children of Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of the devotion shown by the young man to me, and to philosophy."

  Only some of his 300 works are remaining. Here are some of his pieces.

NOTE- This list is in no regard to the any religious or cultural beliefs. I do not profess any of them, although one has to disregard their pre conceived notions in order to fully enjoy these treasures.

• I will start by his world famous "bomb". This one is known as Eucredian paradox.

• "What was most important in Epicurus’ philosophy of nature was the overall conviction that our life on this earth comes with no strings attached; that there is no Maker whose puppets we are; that there is no script for us to follow and be constrained by; that it is up to us to discover the real constraints which our own nature imposes on us."

• "Death is nothing to us, because a body that has been dispersed into elements experiences no sensations, and the absence of sensation is nothing to us. Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist."

• "We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink."

• This excerpt proves he was a genius. Note that his time was- 341 BC- 270 BC

“The risings and settings of the sun, the moon, and the other heavenly bodies may come about from the lighting up and quenching of their fires…; for nothing in our sensory experience runs counter to this hypothesis. Or the said effects may be caused by the emergence of these bodies from a point above the earth and again by the earth’s position in front of them; for nothing in our sensory experience is against this.Here two alternative explanations of “risings and settings” are offered; both are of equal value and equally true, since neither is contradicted by anything in our experience. On the contrary, we have all seen fires die down from lack of fuel, and lights obscured or blacked out by objects coming in front of them.”

• You cannot stop smiling if you truly understand the irony- 

“The conquest of fear, especially fear of unaccountable divine beings who meddle in nature at will, means a reduction in the sum total of human pain and suffering and opens the door to the calm acceptance of a new picture of the world—a world in which nature is autonomous and where there are ideal beings who never meddle.” 

• But he wasn't a full Atheist, rather an Agnostic. What I feel that, a true philosopher will disown religion and atheism both because neither of them seems to be fully true. He said what you can see or experience is true if you have tested it and not become skeptic of your own senses.

"If a person fights the clear evidence of his senses he will never be able to share in genuine tranquillity. In other words, a person who doubts his senses will either lose contact with the reality of the surrounding world, like the Skeptics, and become psychologically isolated and insecure, or he will fall prey, as do the religionists, to theological explanations which do not allay anxiety but foment it.”

• LOL!

“The man who says that all events are necessitated has no ground for critizing the man who says that not all events are necessitated. For according to him this is itself a necessitated event."

• This one is his most liked one- 

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

• “You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity"

• “It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself."

• “If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.”

• “He who has peace of mind disturbs neither himself nor another.”

• “He who says either that the time for philosophy has not yet come or that it has passed is like someone who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or that it has passed.”

• “We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.”

• Yeah, this famous sentence was the work of Epicurus- 

“If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires.”

• "The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.”

• “He who least needs tomorrow, will most gladly greet tomorrow.”

• He took my words!

“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 need to set our affections on one good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing.”

• “Therefore, foolish is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will cause pain when it arrives but because anticipation of it is painful.

• “It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us."