The Essential Epicurus

By Epicurus

Categories: Religion & Spirituality

Eugene O'Connor translates and introduces the surviving writings of Epicurus, the Greek philosopher who taught that pleasure, understood as freedom from bodily pain and mental disturbance, is the goal of life. The volume gathers his three letters: to Herodotus, summarizing his atomic theory of nature; to Pythocles, on celestial phenomena; and to Menoeceus, on ethics and the fear of death. It adds the Principal Doctrines, the Vatican Sayings and surviving fragments of his lost works (Prometheus Books, 1993).

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• Ryan Holiday: “I am not qualified to weigh in on the merits of Epicurus' school of philosophy. As Westerners, we've decided over that two thousand years that his thoughts on death and pleasure and pain are profound and provocative.”