# Epicurus' most famous quotes

"Death is nothing to us", bread and water, friendship as the greatest good and "live unnoticed": the most quoted sayings of Epicurus, with the ancient text they come from (Letter to Menoeceus, Principal Doctrines and Vatican Sayings).

- 59 votes · 12 items
- Sep 27, 2019 · fotograma_del_sur
- https://even.best/en/l/4991/epicurus-most-famous-quotes

## Top 12

1. **Death is nothing to us: while we are, death is not, and when death is, we are not.** (6 · ▲7 ▼1) — Letter to Menoeceus.
2. **Every man leaves this life as if he had just been born.** (6 · ▲6 ▼0) — Vatican Sayings, 60.
3. **Of all the things wisdom provides for the happiness of a whole life, by far the greatest is friendship.** (5 · ▲6 ▼1) — Principal Doctrines, XXVII.
4. **Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Vatican Sayings, 68.
5. **Just as the wise man does not choose the most food but the most pleasant, so he does not seek the longest life but the most pleasant.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Letter to Menoeceus.
6. **Poverty measured by the goal of nature is great wealth; wealth without limits is great poverty.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Vatican Sayings, 25.
7. **I am overflowing with bodily pleasure when I have bread and water.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Fragment preserved by Stobaeus.
8. **Live unnoticed.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Quoted by Plutarch in "Is Live Unknown a Wise Precept?".
9. **Let no one delay studying philosophy while young, nor weary of it when old.** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Letter to Menoeceus.
10. **Among other evils, the fool has this one: he is always beginning to live.** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Quoted by Seneca in the Letters to Lucilius (XIII, 16).
11. **Empty is the argument of the philosopher that relieves no human suffering.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Fragment preserved by Porphyry.
12. **In a philosophical discussion, the loser gains more, since he learns more.** (1 · ▲3 ▼2) — Vatican Sayings, 74.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.