1. 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.
2. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
3. 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.
4. He who is not satisfied with a little is satisfied with nothing.
5. Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
6. The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity.
7. Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.
8. You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.
9. It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.
10. It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.
11. Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
12. I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.
13. Never say that I have taken it, only that I have given it back.
14. 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.
15. The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.
16. I was not, I was, I am not, I care not.
17. He who has peace of mind disturbs neither himself nor another.
18. do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not
19. Don’t fear the gods, Don’t worry about death; What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
20. Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering.
21. The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is a mortal good, the latter and immortal one.
22. 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.
23. Nothing is sufficient for the person who finds sufficiency too little.
24. The fool’s life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.
25. 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.
26. To eat and drink without a friend is to devour like the lion and the wolf.
27. 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.
28. Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.
29. The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.
30. All friendship is desirable in itself, though it starts from the need of help.
31. He who least needs tomorrow, will most gladly greet tomorrow.
32. The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.
33. The purpose of all knowledge, metaphysical as well as scientific, is to achieve what Epicurus called ataraxia, freedom from irrational fears and anxieties of all sorts—in brief, peace of mind.
34. Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.
35. If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires.
36. Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
37. Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old.
38. Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.
39. Death is nothing to us. When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the belief that in death, there is awareness.
40. I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.
41. 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.
42. I was not; I have been; I am not; I do not mind.
43. So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.
44. It is not the pretended but the real pursuit of philosophy that is needed for we do not need the appearance of good health but to enjoy it in truth.
45. The most important consequence of self-sufficiency is freedom.
46. Vain is the word of that philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man.
47. We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.
48. If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
49. if a person fights the clear evidence of his senses he will never be able to share in genuine tranquillity.
49. 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.
50. We must exercise ourselves in thte things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.
51. Contented poverty is an honorable estate.
52. 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.
53. when you die, your mind will be gone even faster than your body.
54. It is not possible for a man to banish all fear of the essential questions of life unless he understands the nature of the universe and unless he banishes all consideration that the fables told about the universe could be true. Therefore a man cannot enjoy full happiness, untroubled by turmoil, unless he acts to gain knowledge of the nature of things.
55. 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.
56. 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.
57. If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.
58. The blessed and indestructible being of the divine has no concerns of its own, nor does it make trouble for others. It is not affected by feelings of anger or benevolence, because these are found where there is lack of strength.
59. How unhappy are the lives of men! How purblind their hearts!
60. The opinions held by most people about the gods are not true conceptions of them but fallacious notions, according to which awful penalties are meted out to the evil and the greatest of blessings to the good.
