Quotes on the thoughts of Epicurus (First part done 11/20/2020)

“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”. (The Essential Epicurus”, by Eugene O’Connor, Great Books in Philosophy series). Done Nov 2020

It is impossible to live pleasurably without living prudently, honorably and justly, and also without living courageously, temperately and magnanimously, without making friends, and without being philanthropic”. Philodemus

The idea that life’s objective should be pleasure was greeted with horror by contemporaries, who believed that man’s highest calling was self-sacrifice. dying for one’s country, self-denial and worship of the Gods, and the Emperor. The early christians regarded pleasure as a form of vice . To them the pursuit of pain triumphed over the pursuit of pleasure.

At the end of the 4th Century A.D Ammianus complained that the Roman Empire had lost its cultural moorings and had descended into a state of triviality, where scholarship was no longer respected and fewer and fewer people read anything at all. (Sound familiar?). ( used Dec 2020)

Epicureanism: Charity, Friendship, Foregiveness, suspicion of ambition and politics

My comment “The physical resurrection of the body and an afterlife are all part of a hoax on the simple-minded. The threat of hell is a means of keeping them in order. Resurrection is contradicted by science, the evidence of our eyes and by common sense. What is the point of listening indefinitely to out-of-tune celestial choirs in any case?

“The best things in life are not things”.