There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men harming or being harmed.

It is not the young man who should be considered fortunate but the old man who has lived well, because the young man in his prime wanders much by chance, vacillating in his beliefs, while the old man has docked in the harbor, having safeguarded his true happiness.

The fool’s life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.

The words of that philosopher who offers no therapy for human suffering are empty and vain.

Let nothing be done in your life, which will cause you fear if it becomes known to your neighbor.

A beneficent person is like a fountain watering the earth, and spreading fertility; it is, therefore, more delightful to give than to receive.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

He who understands the limits of life knows that it is easy to obtain that which removes the pain of want and makes the whole of life complete and perfect. Thus he has no longer any need of things which involve struggle.

Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.

The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation.

Don’t fear god, Don’t worry about death; What is good is easy to get, and What is terrible is easy to endure

The guilty man may escape, but he cannot be sure of doing so.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.

Why are you afraid of death? Where you are, death is not. Where death is, you are not. What is it that you fear.

Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live.

What men fear is not that death is annihilation but that it is not.

All other love is extinguished by self-love; beneficence, humanity, justice, philosophy, sink under it.

An irreligious man is not one who denies the gods of the majority, but one who applies to the gods the opinions of the majority. For what most men say about the gods are not ideas derived from sensation, but false opinions, according to which the greatest evils come to the wicked, and the greatest blessings come to the good from the gods.

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 a pleasant life.

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.

Never say that I have taken it, only that I have given it back.

Justice… is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

A strong belief in fate is the worst kind of slavery; on the other hand, there is a comfort in the thought that God will be moved by our prayers.

Death is meaningless to the living because they are living, and meaningless to the dead… because they are dead.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.

Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession as they torment us with their loss.

The greater the Difficulty the more Glory in surmounting it, and the loss of false Joys secures to us a much better Possession of real ones.

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can and does not want to.
If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent.
If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked.
If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?

We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and righteously.

If you would enjoy real freedom, you must be the slave of Philosophy.

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.

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.

Most men are in a coma when they are at rest and mad when they act.

The wise man neither rejects life nor fears death… just as he does not necessarily choose the largest amount of food, but, rather, the pleasantest food, so he prefers not the longest time, but the most pleasant.

The acquisition of riches has been for many men, not an end, but a change, of troubles.

I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)

What will happen to me if that which this desire seeks is achieved, and what if it is not?

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men in their various relations with each other, in whatever circumstances they may be, that they will neither injure nor be injured.

Man was not intended by nature to live in communities and be civilized.

Virtue consisteth of three parts,–temperance, fortitude, and justice.

When someone admits one and rejects another which is equally in accordance with the appearances, it is clear that he has quitted all physical explanation and descended into myth.

Natural justice is a compact resulting from expediency by which men seek to prevent one man from injuring others and to protect him from being injured by them.

Justice is never anything in itself, but in the dealings of men with one another in any place whatever and at any time. It is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

Earthquakes may be brought about because wind is caught up in the earth, so the earth is dislocated in small masses and is continually shaken, and that causes it to sway.

If the gods have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not all-powerful. If they are neither able nor willing, they are neither all-powerful or benevolent. If they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, why does it exist?

Where I am death is not, where death is I am not.

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

When we say that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasure of the profligate or that which depends on physical enjoyment–as some think who do not understand our teachings, disagree with them, or give them an evil interpretation–but by pleasure we mean the state wherein the body is free from pain and the mind from anxiety.

The term “incorporeal” is properly applied only to the void, which cannot act or be acted on. Since the soul can act and be acted upon, it is corporeal.

Let no young man delay the study of philosophy, and let no old man become weary of it; for it is never too early nor too late to care for the well-being of the soul.

Justice has no independent existence; it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury.

Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.
Religious tyranny did domineer.
At length the mighty one of Greece
Began to assent the liberty of man.

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When such pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together.

Death is nothing to us: for after our bodies have been dissolved by death they are without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us. And therefore a right understanding of death makes mortality enjoyable, not because it adds to an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality.

Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity.

Haec ego non multis (scribo), sed tibi: satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus. I am writing this not to many, but to you: certainly we are a great enough audience for each other.

We ought to be thankful to nature for having made those things which are necessary easy to be discovered; while other things that are difficult to be known are not necessary.

Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death we human beings all live in an unwalled city.

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.

Many friends are the key to happiness

Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.

It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn’t know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.

The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so, cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can, but will not, than they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?

It is vain to ask of the gods what man is capable of supplying for himself.

There is nothing to fear from gods, There is nothing to feel in death, Good can be attained, Evil can be endured.

Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure.

Men are so thoughtless, nay, so mad, that some, through fear of death, force themselves to die.

The honor paid to a wise man is a great good for those who honor him.

Any device whatever by which one frees himself from the fear of others is a natural good.

Tranquil pleasure constitutes human beings’ supreme good

We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, to which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and confusion.

But the universe is infinite.

Without confidence, there is no friendship.

Thanks be to blessed Nature that she has made what is necessary easy to obtain, and what is not easy unnecessary.

Gratitude is a virtue that has commonly profit annexed to it.

Moreover, the universe as a whole is infinite, for whatever is limited has an outermost edge to limit it, and such an edge is defined by something beyond. Since the universe has no edge, it has no limit; and since it lacks a limit, it is infinite and unbounded. Moreover, the universe is infinite both in the number of its atoms and in the extent of its void.

Of all the gifts that wise Providence grants us to make life full and happy, friendship is the most beautiful.

All friendship is desirable in itself, though it starts from the need of help

My garden does not whet the appetite; it satisfies it. It does not provoke thirst through heedless indulgence, but slakes it by proffering its natural remedy. Amid such pleasures as these have I grown old.

Most beautiful is the sight of those near and dear to us when our original kinship makes us of one mind.

I was not; I have been; I am not; I do not mind.

The mind that is much elevated and insolent with prosperity, and cast down with adversity, is generally abject and base.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

I spit upon luxurious pleasures, not for their own sake, but because of the inconveniences that follow them.

For a wrongdoer to be undetected is difficult; and for him to have confidence that his concealment will continue is impossible.

The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live.

Launch your boat, blessed youth, and flee at full speed from every form of culture.

He who doesn’t find a little enough will find nothing enough.

We have been born once and there can be no second birth. Fir all eternity we shall no longer be. But you, although you are not master of tomorrow, are postponing your happiness.

The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.

It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.

The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity.

To eat and drink without a friend is to devour like the lion and the wolf.

The wise man thinks of fame just enough to avoid being despised.

Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.

Luxurious food and drinks, in no way protect you from harm. Wealth beyond what is natural, is no more use than an overflowing container. Real value is not generated by theaters, and baths, perfumes or ointments, but by philosophy.

In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who is defeated, since he learns most.

No pleasure is evil in itself; but the means by which certain pleasures are gained bring pains many times greater than the pleasures.

Any man who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole world.

A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth .

The summit of pleasure is the elimination of all that gives pain.

To be rich is not the end, but only a change, of worries.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

If death causes you no pain when you’re dead, it is foolish to allow the fear of it to cause you pain now.

Freedom is the greatest fruit of self sufficiency.

Live your life without attracting attention.

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

The pleasant life is not produced by continual drinking and dancing, nor sexual intercourse, nor rare dishes of sea food and other delicacies of a luxurious table. On the contrary, it is produced by sober reasoning which examines the motives for every choice and avoidance, driving away beliefs which are the source of mental disturbances.

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

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.

Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.

Being happy is knowing how to be content with little

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

Happiness is man’s greatest aim in life. Tranquility and rationality are the cornerstones of happiness.

Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.

Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?

The things you really need are few and easy to come by; but the things you can imagine you need are infinite, and you will never be satisfied.

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.

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?