"Epicurus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unification of all phenomena and all knowledge. At the very time when the whole tide of Eastern superstition was sweeping into the heart of the Capitol the Senate banished the Greek philosophers from Rome. And of the three systems which did at length take some root in the city those of Zeno and Epicurus were merely used as the rule for the ordering of life, while the dogmatic scepticism of Carneades, by its very principles, annihilated the possibility of argument and encouraged a ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... philosophy actually to make its appearance at Rome was that of Epicurus[756]; but it speedily disappeared for the time, and only became popular in the last century B.C., and then in its most repulsive form. It was indeed destined to inspire the noblest mind among all Roman thinkers with ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... conceive, virgins that we dreamed of as we grew out of childhood, admired in secret, and adored without hope, veiled in the beams of some unwearying desire,—maids whom we may never see again, but whose smile remains supreme in our life, what hog of Epicurus could insist on dragging you down to the mire of ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... 'honey-browned by the ambrosial fires of Epicurus. I'd give two years of my life to get the recipe for making them pancakes. That's what I went to see Miss Learight for,' says Jackson Bird, 'but I haven't been able to get it from her. It's an old recipe ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... until the dawn. The next day the friar who had laved his part with so much facetiousness, with more of the manner of a brigand than a religious, more suitable for the school of Sardanapalus or of Epicurus than for the life of a cloister, said that he had lost more than eighty doubloons, or gold ounces—it appearing that his sleeve refused to protect that which he had made a vow ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... it is an excellent man[90]. I wish there had been more inconvenience and less gratification to my self-love in it, for then there had been more merit. We are all selfish—and I believe, ye gods of Epicurus! I believe in Rochefoucault about men, and in Lucretius (not Busby's translation) about yourselves. Your bard has made you very nonchalant and blest; but as he has excused us from damnation, I don't envy you ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... having to console others Enslave our own contentment to the power of another? Enters lightly into a quarrel is apt to go as lightly out of it Entertain us with fables: astrologers and physicians Epicurus Establish this proposition by authority and huffing Evade this tormenting and unprofitable knowledge Even the very promises of physic are incredible in themselves Events are a very poor testimony of our worth and parts Every abridgment of a good book is a foolish ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... been my refinement of feeling, I was not deterred from eating venison for a week afterwards, day by day, and assenting to its delicious flavour, which, for the satisfaction of the son of Epicurus who may read these lines, I would state, tasted very strongly of the moss on which the animal had fed, and comprehended every charming idea he can ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... considers the universe eternal, but not its form. This was the system of Epicurus and most of the ancient philosophers and poets, who imagined the world either to be produced by fortuitous concourse of atoms existing from all eternity, or to have sprung out of the chaotic form which ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... through all varieties, their refections became a study with them, and they were fain to feed by invention: novices in true epicurism! which by mediocrity, paucity, quick and healthful appetite, makes delights smartly acceptable; whereby Epicurus himself found Jupiter's brain in a piece of Cytheridian cheese, and the tongues of nightingales in a dish of onions. Hereby healthful and temperate poverty hath the start of nauseating luxury; unto whose clear and naked appetite every ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... undermines it. No one in the time of Plato would lave ventured to give his name to a doctrine in which the theory of ideas had no place, and one would deservedly have excited the ridicule of Greece by trying to pass off Epicurus or Zeno as a disciple of the Academy. Let us recognize, then, that if a religion or a doctrine exists which is called Christianity, it may have ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... definitions is still of value because one side of chance is explained and the other is thereby seen more closely. Let us consider a few of these and other definitions. Aristotle says that the accidental occurs, , according to nature. Epicurus, who sees the creation of the world as a pure accident, holds it to occur <gr tuchs, ta de par hmwn>. Spinoza believes nothing to be contingent save only according to the limitations of knowledge; Kant says that conditioned existence as such, is called accidental; ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... handle, which are always in motion, and which can neither be stopped nor broken in pieces, nor in any way destroyed or deprived of the least of their properties, was known by the name of the Atomic theory. It was associated with the names of Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius, and was commonly supposed to admit the existence only of atoms and void, to the exclusion of any other basis ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... Epicurus was the greatest of all freethinkers, and consequently the most virtuous man in the world. His opinions in religion were the most complete system of atheism that ever appeared. Christians ought to have the greatest veneration for him, because he taught a higher point of virtue than Christ; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... speaking against neither, for I believe in the fulness of life, in amply supplying all its wants; but the kingdom of God is more to me than this world. I would be Plato in love, Zeno in self-strength, and Epicurus in aesthetics; but if I have to sacrifice either, let ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... forensic oratory the wisdom of Plato defines to be politikes moriou eidolon, "the shadow of a fraction of the art of government," or a fourth part of the art of flattery. But Epicurus calls it kakotechnia, reckoning it among the wicked arts. Tisias, who has Gorgias of Leontinum on his side, calls the orator an artist ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic impudence uttered, was ever questioned by the laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old comedians were suppressed, though the acting of them were forbid; and that Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes, the loosest ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... repulsive expansion; and the stinging anguish, duplex motion. The author hints that he has written other works, to which he gives no clue. I have heard that Behmen was pillaged by Newton, and Swedenborg[583] by Laplace,[584] and Pythagoras by Copernicus,[585] and Epicurus by Dalton,[586] &c. I do not think this mention will revive Behmen; but it may the whizgig, a very pretty toy, and philosophical withal, for few of those who used ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... magnificent repast was spread for the Laureate and his guest, in a lofty, richly frescoed banqueting-hall,—a repast voluptuous enough to satisfy the most ardent votary that ever followed the doctrines of Epicurus. Wonderful dainties and still more wonderful wines were served in princely profusion—and while the strangely met and sympathetically united friends ate and drank, delicious music was played on stringed instruments by unseen performers. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... them keeps watch." He thus in answer spake: "They shall be closed all, what-time they here From Josaphat[1] return'd shall come, and bring Their bodies, which above they now have left. The cemetery on this part obtain, With Epicurus, all his followers, Who with the body make the spirit die. Here therefore satisfaction shall be soon, Both to the question ask'd, and to the wish [2] Which thou conceal'st in silence." I replied: "I ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... of Conti was at school at that time. Gassendi, the private tutor to the natural son of a man of fortune, named Chapelle—the son at that time at school with Poguelin—discovered the boy's talents, and taught him the philosophy of Epicurus, and gave him lessons in morals. Another of his fellow-students was one de Bergerac, of fine talents but wild disposition. Chapelle and de Bergerac became ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... engaged in conversation with a friend who loves sceptical paradoxes. To my expression of the opinion that a wise magistrate can justly be jealous of certain tenets of philosophy such as those of Epicurus, which, denying a divine existence, and consequently a Providence and a future state, seem to loosen the ties of morality, he ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... up with Stoic fortitude of mind in the cold this morning; but afterwards, in my hot bath, I joined the school of Epicurus. I was a Materialist at breakfast; after it an Idealist, as I smoked my first cigarette and turned the world to transcendental vapour. But when I began to read the Times I had no doubt of the existence ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... deceive yourselves, my dear brothers in Epicurus!" said the superintendent; "I will not make a comparison between the most humble sinner on the earth and the God we adore, but remember, he gave one day to his friends a repast which is called the Last Supper, and which was nothing but a ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Epicurus, with his name in Greek characters, was found in the same room, and was possibly the ornament of that part of the library where the writings in favour of his principles were kept; and it may also be supposed that some other heads of philosophers found in the same room were ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... Saturnian reign; Witness, ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares, Hark to my call, for some of you have ears. Let David Hume, from the remotest north, In see-saw sceptic scruples hint his worth; David, who there supinely deigns to lie The fattest hog of Epicurus' sty; Though drunk with Gallic wine, and Gallic praise, David shall bless Old England's halcyon days; The mighty Home, bemired in prose so long, Again shall stalk upon the stilts of song: While bold Mac-Ossian, wont in ghosts to deal, Bids candid Smollett from his coffin steal; Bids Mallock ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Irish secretary, his Excellency's condescension was even more cruel than his frowns. Sir William would perpetually quote Latin and the ancient classics a propos of his gardens and his Dutch statues and plates-bandes, and talk about Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, Julius Caesar, Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hesperides, Maecenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. A propos of beans, he would mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and that this precept probably meant that wise men should abstain ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... statements, thus fairly epitomized, there is not one that is true—not one of which the essential falsity is not evident, obvious, conspicuous to even the most delinquent observation. Yet with the smartness and smirk of a graduating seminary girl refuting Epicurus she marshals them against the awful truth that every year in Europe and the United States alone more than five thousand human beings the of hydrophobia—a fact which her controversial conscience does not permit her to mention. The names on this needless death-roll ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... hard. His body was secure, his belly full, his hands and brain pleasantly busy. He lived amongst intelligent people and handsome objects, permitting himself such reasonable emotions as were recommended by his master, Epicurus. He awoke each morning to a quiet day of ordered satisfaction, the prescribed toll of unexacting labour, a little sensual pleasure, a little rational conversation, a cool argument, a judicious appreciation of all that the intellect can apprehend. Into ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... to think he has found them; marked on the fly-leaves with an impression, in wax, of a seal engraved with the head of Epicurus. ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... stands where it did, a great way off indeed, but not turned topsy-turvy by our magician's wand! Should we ever arrive there, that is, attain to a state of perfect moral restraint, we shall not be driven headlong back into Epicurus's stye for want of the only possible checks to population, vice and misery; and in proportion as we advance that way, that is, as the influence of moral restraint is extended, the necessity for vice and misery ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... feature of his poetry Lucretius inherited as part of his birthright. This is the sense of Roman greatness. It pervades the poem, and may be felt in every part; although to Athens, and the Greek sages, Democritus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, and Epicurus, as the fountain-heads of soul-delivering culture, he reserves his most magnificent periods of panegyric. Yet when he would fain persuade his readers that the fear of death is nugatory, and that the future will be to them even as the past, it is the shock of Rome ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... is unacquainted with "the nature of God, but not with the necessity of the existence of the Power of all powers, and First Cause of all causes; so that we know that God is, though not what he is." See his "Human Nature," chap. xi. But was the God of Hobbes the inactive deity of Epicurus, who takes no interest in the happiness or misery of his created beings; or, as Madame de Stael has expressed it, with the point and felicity of French antithesis, was this "an Atheism with a God?" This consequence some of his adversaries would ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... were only at peace about everything—they were at war about everything else. But if the question turn on the primary pivot of the cosmos, then there was more cosmic contentment in the narrow and bloody streets of Florence than in the theatre of Athens or the open garden of Epicurus. Giotto lived in a gloomier town than Euripides, but he ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... Algarottis, the Maupertuises, are here; have each his work, serious for himself; then gay Supper with a King, who is a great man and the soul of good company."... Sparta and Athens, I tell you: "a Camp of Mars and the Garden of Epicurus; trumpets and violins, War and Philosophy. I have my time all to myself; am at Court and in freedom,—if I were not entirely free, neither an enormous Pension, nor a Gold Key tearing out one's pocket, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... Its suffrages are not for the cool, collected observer, whose eyes no glitter can dazzle, no mist suffuse. The many cannot but resent that air of lofty intelligence, that pale and subtle smile. But he will hold a place forever among that limited number, who, like Lucretius and Epicurus—without range or defiance, even without unbecoming mirth, look deep into the tangled mysteries of things; refuse credence to the absurd, and allegiance to arrogant authority; sufficiently conscious of fallibility ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... birth-day; as this very day Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala: Be thou my witness that against my will, As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set Upon one battle all our liberties. You know that I held Epicurus strong, And his opinion: now I change my mind, And partly credit things that do presage. Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perch'd, Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands; Who to Philippi here consorted ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... entertainments were celebrated, and justly so. At her receptions one always heard the best singers and players of the season, and Epicurus' soul could rest in peace, for her chef had an international reputation. Oh, remember, you music-fed ascetic, many, aye, very many, regard the transition from Tschaikowsky to terrapin, from Beethoven to burgundy with hearts ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... outcrop of evolution-doctrine in the long interval between Aristotle and Bacon seems to be very difficult, and some of the instances that have been cited strike one as forced. Epicurus and Lucretius, often called poets of evolution, both pictured animals as arising directly out of the earth, very much as Milton's lion long afterwards pawed its way out. Even when we come to Bruno who wrote that "to the sound of the harp of the Universal Apollo (the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... as theoretical, in these matters, and he considers that mothers should instruct their daughters at marriage, and fathers their sons. Philosophers have from time to time recognized the gravity of these questions and have discoursed concerning them; thus Epicurus, as Plutarch tells us,[375] would discuss with his disciples various sexual matters, such as the proper time for coitus; but then, as now, there were obscurantists who would leave even the central facts of life to the hazards ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... follower of the doctrines of Epicurus, which he took as a reasonable mean between the harshness of stoicism and the low morality of the Cyrenaics. In his odes, especially those written on public occasions, he uses, as all public men did, the language of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... of philosophy called Epicureanism was founded by a Greek named Epicurus. He taught in Athens during the earlier part of the third century B.C. Epicurus believed that pleasure is the sole good, pain, the sole evil. He meant by pleasure not so much the passing enjoyments of the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... but what is absolutely harmonious; all that is rough, harsh, powerful, brutal, and unexpected, throws him into convulsions. Audacity—boldness of all kinds—repels him. This Athenian of the Roman time is a true disciple of Epicurus in all matters of sight, hearing, and intelligence—a crumpled rose-leaf ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... spoken with much art, by men who were neither actors nor poets, but to whom youth and solitude gave an unaccustomed eloquence, which appeared to them better than everything else in the world. "Why," said La Fontaine, "does not our master Epicurus descend into the garden? Epicurus never abandoned his pupils, the master ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the present hour. Try and imagine that each day which dawns upon you is your last; then each succeeding day will come unexpected and delightful. I practise what I preach: come and take a look at me; you will find me contented, sleek, and plump, 'the fattest little pig in Epicurus' sty.'" And he impresses the same lesson on another friend, Bullatius, who was for some reason restless at home and sought relief in travel. "What ails you to scamper over Asia or voyage among the Isles of Greece? Sick men travel for health, ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... the shades of his picture by admitting that egotism may be, and often must be, advantageous not merely to the individual but to the race. And here we find the key to one of the oddest passages in his works, that in which he attributes his inspiration to two saints, St. Augustine and St. Epicurus! He says— ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... most complain of in Jeremy Taylor's ethics; namely, that he constantly refers us to the deeds or 'phenomena' in time, the effluents from the source, or like the 'species' of Epicurus; while the corrupt nature is declared guiltless and irresponsible; and this too on the pretext that it was prior in time to the commandment, and therefore not against it. But time is no more predicable ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... Democritus the man. Let us return now to his theory of atoms. This theory, it must be confessed, made no very great impression upon his contemporaries. It found an expositor, a little later, in the philosopher Epicurus, and later still the poet Lucretius gave it popular expression. But it seemed scarcely more than the dream of a philosopher or the vagary of a poet until the day when modern science began to penetrate the mysteries of matter. When, finally, the researches ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... real Olympos was the Pantheon. The other was fading away. Deeper and deeper it was sinking back into the golden dream from which it had sprung. Further and further the crystal parapets were retreating. Dimmer and more dim the gorgeous host became. In words of perfect piety Epicurus pictured them in the felicity of the ideal. There, they had no heed of man, no desire for worship, no wish for prayer. It was unnecessary even to think of them. Decorously, with every ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... when ignorant persons that like to dabble in metaphysics imagine matter so subtle, so supersubtle that they almost make themselves giddy with it, and then think that in this way they have conceived it as a spiritual and yet extended being. If with Epicurus we make virtue determine the will only by means of the pleasure it promises, we cannot afterwards blame him for holding that this pleasure is of the same kind as those of the coarsest senses. For we have no reason ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... measure require what."—Chandler's Gram., 1821, p. 164. "The Irish thought themselves oppress'd by the Law that forbid them to draw with their Horses Tails."—Brightland's Gram., Pref., p. iii. "So willingly are adverbs, qualifying deceives."—Cutler's Gram., p. 90. "Epicurus for experiment sake confined himself to a narrower diet than that of the severest prisons."—Ib., p. 116. "Derivative words are such as are compounded of other words, as common-wealth, good-ness, false-hood."—Ib., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... not imply that he was unfeeling: feelings he had—delicate and poignant ones; but they never dominated him to the exclusion of good sense. His philosophy—if we may call so airy a thing by such a name—was the philosophy of some gentle whimsical follower of Epicurus. He loved nature, but unromantically, as he loved a glass of wine and an ode of Horace, and the rest of the good things of life. As for the bad things—they were there; he saw them—saw the cruelty of the wolf, and the tyranny of the lion, and ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... well then contemn the chattering of Epicurus that pleasurable Hoggrubber, who said, that no wise man would ever give himself in to the Bands of Matrimony; because there is so much grief, trouble, and misery to be found in it. For we see to the contrary, that the Wise men long to be in it, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... of this voluptuous anarchy the spirits of Epicurus, of Spinoza, of Goethe, of Nietzsche, turn away in horror. This is indeed an insurrection from the depths; this is indeed a breaking loose of chaos; this is indeed a "return to Nature." For there is a perilous intoxication in all ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... the same fashion and with a charm, a grace, a witty ingenuity which are fascinating. He was the epicurean of poetry (before the birth of Epicurus) and from him was born a type of literature known as anacreonotic, which extended right through ancient times and has been prolonged ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... understand the love of abstract truth, or the charm of abstract reasoning employed for its own sake without any ulterior end. To profess the doctrines of stoicism, and live a life of self-indulgence, was to be false to one's convictions; to embrace Epicurus's system without making it subservient to enjoyment, was equally foreign to a consistent character. In Athens the daily life of an Epicurean and a Stoic would not present any marked difference; in discussion they would be widely divergent, but the contrast ended ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... "The Epicurean," a tale of extreme grace and feeling, and conveying the sublime lessons of Epicurus, in one of the most attractive of poetico-prosaic forms. In picturesque knowledge, splendid descriptions, startling and mysterious incidents, and intellectual riches, this work is almost unparalleled in our language; and, observes an elegant critic, "the narrative sweeps along, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 12, No. 349, Supplement to Volume 12. • Various
... COSMOS,—for the commencement of the existing order of Nature is admitted to be comparatively recent,—but the eternal existence of Matter and Motion; and attempts to account for the origin of the world and of the races by which it is peopled, either by ascribing it, with Epicurus, to a fortuitous concourse of atoms, or, with more modern Speculatists, to a law of progressive development. This has been called the Epicurean Hypothesis, because Epicurus, while nominally admitting the existence of God, denied the creation of the world, and ascribed its origin ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... hast deserved the fire; and we should but do our duty, did we inflict it upon thee." With these and the like words in plenty he upbraided him, bending on him meanwhile a countenance as stern as if Epicurus had stood before him denying the immortality of the soul. In short he so terrified him that the good man was fain to employ certain intermediaries to anoint his palms with a liberal allowance of St. John Goldenmouth's grease, an excellent remedy for the disease ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... door, addressing Rankin). Bikouros (Moroccan for Epicurus, a general Moorish name for the missionaries, who are supposed by the Moors to have chosen their calling through a love of luxurious idleness): I have brought to your house a Christian dog ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... mentioned with pleased surprise in their letters home; that is, if they had any homes and ever thought of writing to them. And Cousin Willie Kerr, having got "off" at three-thirty with carte blanche for the arrangements, that night proved that the world of Epicurus had lost an artist when he had turned his talents to commerce. But of course Carlisle's triumph lay not in glowing candle-shades or masses of red and pink roses, not in delicate viands or vintages, however costly. She read her brilliance ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... jurists, to say nothing of the minute psychological analyses of the Stoic casuists. In this range of ideas also, the maintenance of the most striking contrasts characterizes Egyptian mentality, which was never shocked by the cruelties and obscenities that sullied the mythology and the ritual. Like Epicurus at Athens, some of the sacred texts actually invited the believers to enjoy life before the ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... philosophy of the Moulders, pigs out of the sty of Epicurus. And so it was they passed Christmas-day in ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Epicurus differed but little from the propounders of the code of revolutionary despotism. All societies, he said, are founded on contract for mutual protection. Good and evil are conventional terms, for the thunderbolts of heaven fall alike on the just and the unjust. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Epicurus wrote that the whole universe consisted of atoms, thinking, Alcimus, that the atom was the least of things. But if Diophantus had lived then, he would have written, "consisted of Diophantus," who is much more ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... Epicurus assumed the existence of matter, force and motion,—Stoff und Kraft. He held that all space was filled with molecules of matter in a state of rapid motion in every direction. These molecules were subject to gravity and ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... unctuous juices of deer's flesh & the green unspeakable of turtle. I honour you for your endeavours to esteem and approve of my favorite, which I ventured to recommend to you as a substitute for hare, bullock's heart, and I am not offended that you cannot taste it with my palate. A true son of Epicurus should reserve one taste peculiar to himself. For a long time I kept the secret about the exceeding deliciousness of the marrow of boiled knuckle of veal, till my tongue weakly ran riot in its praises, and now it is prostitute & common.—But I have made one discovery which I will not impart till ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... not very ancient in the world, nor at all countenanced from primitive times: Our Saviour had but a low esteem of it, as appears by His treatment of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who followed the doctrines of Plato and Epicurus. St Paul likewise, who was well versed in all the Grecian literature, seems very much to despise their philosophy, as we find in his writings, cautioning the Colossians to "beware lest any man spoil them through philosophy and vain deceit." And, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... unknown painter who had ventured to make it. Nor did he. Turning over a page he also contrived to turn the laugh yet once again, this time against the too-presuming artist. Finding, perhaps, the coarsest of the sketches, one in keeping with the "fat and splendid pig from the drove of Epicurus," he in his turn wrote the name of Holbein above the wanton boor at his carousals. It was a reprisal not more delicate than the spirit with which subjects too sacred to have been named in the same breath with ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... taken of the moral principles inculcated by the most esteemed of the sects of ancient philosophy, or of their individuals; particularly Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... our writing, which proceeds from conversation. In the age wherein those poets lived, there was less of gallantry than in ours; neither did they keep the best company of theirs. Their fortune has been much like that of Epicurus, in the retirement of his gardens; to live almost unknown, and to be celebrated after their decease. I cannot find that any of them had been conversant in courts, except Ben Jonson; and his genius lay not so much ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... her that Jean Jacques had ceased to care for the charms which once he had so proudly proclaimed. There was in her the strain of the religion of Epicurus. She desired always that her visible corporeal self should be admired and desired, that men should say, "What a splendid creature!" It was in her veins, an undefined philosophy of life; and she had ever measured the love of Jean Jacques by his caresses. She had no other ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... love in those nobler forms to which it has since elevated itself. Menander painted truly the degenerate world in which he lived, actuated by no mighty impulses, no noble aspirations. He was contemporary with Epicurus, and their characters had much in common; both were deficient in the inspiration ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... familiar with the conception of the world over our heads. We no longer speculate with Epicurus and Anaxagoras whether the sun may be as large as a quoit, or even as large as Peloponnesus. We are satisfied that the greater and the lesser lights are worlds, some of them greatly exceeding our own ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... his head. "Bless you, no! My dear sir, there is nothing new. Epicurus and Lucretius outlined the whole Darwinian theory more than two thousand years ago. As for this eponym thing, why Saint Augustine called attention to it fifteen hundred years ago. In his 'De Civitate Dei,' he expressly says of these genealogical ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... snubbing a nervous man, when he gets a chance. He has a positive distaste for doubtful society—he is afraid of compromising himself; in his lighter moments, however, he will avow himself a follower of Epicurus, though as a rule he speaks slightingly of philosophy, calling it the foggy food fit for German brains, or at times, simply, rot. He is fond of music too; at the card-table he is given to humming through his teeth, but with feeling; he knows by ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... the details of my labors and my sorrows?" he wrote again to his faithful D'Argens. "My spirits have forsaken me; all gayety is buried with the loved noble ones to whom my heart was bound." He had lost his mother and his devoted sister Wilhelmina. "You as a follower of Epicurus put a value upon life; as for me, I regard death from the Stoic point of view. I have told you, and I repeat it, never shall my hand sign a humiliating peace. Finish this campaign I will, resolved to dare all, to succeed, or find a ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... at Florence, in the time of the superb Manfred, who was half a Mussulman, men who were said to be of the sect of Epicurus, and who sought for arguments against the existence of God. Guido Cavalcanti disdained the ignorant folk who believed in the immortality of the soul. The following phrase by him was quoted: 'The death of man is exactly similar to that of brutes.' Later, when ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Socrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Zeno, and having knocked with the hammer against the door, he waited, ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... were difficult problems to master, for the intellect of this wonderful child demanded stronger food, and she was introduced into philosophy. My father himself belonged to the school of Epicurus, and succeeded far beyond his expectations in rousing Cleopatra's interest in his master's teachings. She had been made acquainted with the other great philosophers also, but always returned to Epicurus, and induced the rest of us to live ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... opinions without thereby causing any immediate stir in the Churches.[321] On the left there were schools such as the Carpocratians, in which the philosophy and communism of Plato were taught, the son of the founder and second teacher Epiphanes honoured as a God (at Cephallenia), as Epicurus was in his school, and the image of Jesus crowned along with those of Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle.[322] On this left flank are, further, swindlers who take their own way, like Alexander of Abonoteichus, magicians, soothsayers, sharpers ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... affirmed that the soul was an aerial spirit, but at the same time immortal. Diogenes (not he who was a cynical philosopher after having coined base money) declared that the soul was a portion of the substance of God: an idea which we must confess was very sublime. Epicurus maintained that it was composed of parts in the same manner as ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... to whom these attributes belonged took any cognizance of man, or his actions, he had never been able to make up his mind." "Yet surely it does make a slight difference," said Harrington, "since if God takes no cognizance of man, then, as Cicero long ago remarked of the idle dogs of Epicurus, —I mean gods of Epicurus, I beg their pardon, but really it does not matter which consonant comes first,—atheism and deism are much the same thing." "Why," said the Deist, "there is as much difference as in the theories of our 'intuitional' ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... whereof thou needest to be ashamed, neither is it a thing whereby thy understanding, that hath the government of all, can be made worse. For neither in regard of the substance of it, nor in regard of the end of it (which is, to intend the common good) can it alter and corrupt it. This also of Epicurus mayst thou in most pains find some help of, that it is 'neither intolerable, nor eternal;' so thou keep thyself to the true bounds and limits of reason and give not way to opinion. This also thou must consider, ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... itself a real good, if we may believe Cicero, who was perhaps too fond of it; but even fame, as Virgil tells us, acquires strength by going forward. Let Epicurus give indolency as an attribute to his gods, and place in it the happiness of the blest: the Divinity which we worship has given us not only a precept against it, but His own example to the contrary. The world, my lord, would be content to allow you a seventh day for rest; or, if you thought that ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... the fleet of Pantag'ruel landed on the fourth day of their voyage. Here many choice curiosities were bought, such as "the picture of a man's voice," an "echo drawn to life," "Plato's ideas," some of "Epicurus's atoms," a sample of "Philome'la's needlework," and other objects of vertu to be obtained nowhere ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... which contains the Menagier's injunctions for "feeding the brute", is the longest in the book, and gives an extraordinarily interesting picture of the domestic economy of our ancestors.[19] The Menagier must have been brother to Chaucer's Franklin, 'Epicurus owene sone': ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... wherein no man can work. The night once come, our happiness, our unhappiness,—it is all abolished; vanished, clean gone; a thing that has been: 'not of the slightest consequence' whether we were happy as eupeptic Curtis, as the fattest pig of Epicurus, or unhappy as Job with potsherds, as musical Byron with Giaours and sensibilities of the heart; as the unmusical Meat-jack with hard labour and rust! But our work,—behold that is not abolished, that has not ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... inconsistent with those interests. God forbid! I may be mistaken, but I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice: I would keep them both: it is not necessary I should sacrifice either. I do not like the idea of tolerating the doctrines of Epicurus: but nothing in the world propagates them so much as the oppression of the poor, of the honest and candid disciples of the religion we profess in common,—I mean revealed religion; nothing sooner makes them take a short cut out of the bondage of sectarian vexation into open and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... this world would be, if only one had not to play a part in it; if one existed, for instance, in some point of space, in that interval of the celestial orbs where the gods of Epicurus slumber, far, far away, whence one could see this globe, on which we strut so big, about the size of a pumpkin, and whence one could watch all the airs and tricks of that two-footed mite who calls itself man. I would fain only look at the scenes ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... together in the breeze; for though in the dark earth their roots creep apart, their summits are joined in the freedom of clear air. As I now struck inland from the iron shores of shipwreck, my heart warmed to a brighter and softer landscape, and with Landor I began to wish that I might walk with Epicurus on the right hand and Epictetus on the left. With a later thinker I reflected that if the Stoic knew more of the faith and hope of Christianity, the Epicurean came nearer to its charity. For it is true that ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... which the history is written. The youth who lisped in Attic numbers and was brought up on the language we now so painfully and imperfectly acquire, who was lulled to sleep by songs of AEschylus and Sophocles, who discussed philosophy in the porches of Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus, was a more accomplished classical scholar than the most learned pundit of modern times, and was a model of manly beauty, yet he would have died to win the wreath of parsley at the Olympian games, which all esteemed an immortal prize. While, in our time, to be the winning crew ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter |
