signature

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
  -- William Shakespeare, "MacBeth"
%
Hell is truth seen too late.
  -- Thomas Hobbes, "Leviathan"
%
Happy the man, whose wish and care
 A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
 In his own ground.
  -- Alexander Pope "Ode on Solitude"
%
All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room
alone.
  -- Blaise Pascal
%
Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to
darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change
shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwe and Varda may know; but they have
not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.
  -- J. R. R. Tolkien, "The Silmarillion"
%
The question is not, Can they reason?
nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
  -- Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) on animal rights
%
Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.
  -- Edwin P. Whipple
%
When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.
  -- Dylan Thomas
%
Be cheerful while you are alive.
  -- Phathotep, 24th Century B.C.
%
Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow."
  -- Mary Anne Radmacher
%
Always do right.  This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
  -- Mark Twain
%
There are many causes I am prepared to die for,
but no causes I am prepared to kill for.
  -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
%
This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future,
which is a little ironic since we may not have one.
  -- Arthur C. Clarke
%
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
  -- Arthur C. Clarke
%
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
  -- Galileo Galilei
%
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can
still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
  -- Galileo
%
By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.
  -- Galileo Galilei
%
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think
we're not.  In either case the idea is quite staggering.
  -- Arthur C. Clarke
%
Politicians should read science fiction,
not westerns and detective stories.
  -- Arthur C. Clarke
%
There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
  -- Arthur C. Clarke
%
Grass is the forgiveness of nature - her constant benediction.  Forests
decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal.
  -- Brian Ingalls
%
Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value
of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
  -- Mark Twain
%
You may my glories and my state dispose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
  -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II"
%
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
  -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
%
Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read.
  -- Mark Twain
%
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
  -- Mark Twain
%
To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul.
  -- Cicero
%
No furniture so charming as books.
  -- Sydney Smith
%
Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.
  -- Barbara Tuchman
%
The dissemination of knowledge is one of the cornerstones of civilization.
  -- John F. Budd
%
Anyone who has a library and a garden wants for nothing.
  -- Cicero
%
Nature uses as little as possible of anything.
  -- Johannes Keppler
%
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things
are infinitely the most important.
  -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Case of Identity"
%
Live simply, so others may simply live.
  -- Gandhi
%
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me
as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
  -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"
%
The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live.
  -- Seneca the Younger
%
Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art
deeper than we ourselves possess.
  -- Gandalf [J. R. R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"]
%
Take eight minutes and divide by 90 million lonely miles, and watch
a shadow cross the floor.  We don't live here anymore.
  -- The Weakerthans
%
Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers.
  -- Pablo Picasso
%
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why.
  -- Hunter S. Thompson
%
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
  -- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
  -- Albert Einstein
%
Nothing to fear in Gods; Nothing to feel in death;
Good can be attained; Evil can be endured.
  -- Epicurus
%
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
  -- Henry David Thoreau
%
The imagination is man's power over nature.
  -- Wallace Stevens
%
Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake
and a basic understanding of how the world works.
  -- Carl Sagan
%
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
  -- Carl Sagan
%
You have succeeded in life when all you really want
is only what you really need.
  -- Vernon Howard
%
I think we can put our differences behind us... for science.  You monster.
  -- GLaDOS, Portal 2
%
There's small choice in rotten apples.
  -- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew"
%
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is
difference of opinion that makes horse-races.
  -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
%
Difficulties are things that show what men are.
  -- Epictetus
%
If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his
riches but take away from his desires.
  -- Epicurus
%
It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that
which he has the power to obtain by himself.
  -- Epicurus
%
Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest
interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.
  -- Epicurus
%
Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
  -- Epicurus
%
A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do
without servility to mobs or monarchs.
  -- Epicurus
%
Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
  -- Epicurus
%
If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished:
for they are forever praying for evil against one another.
  -- Epicurus
%
It is not so much our friends' help that helps us,
as the confidence of their help.
  -- Epicurus
%
Nullius in verba ("Take nobody's word for it")
  -- Motto of the Royal Society
%
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None will level on the line, Nobody offered his word.
  -- Bob Dylan, "All along the watchtower"
%
Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.
  -- Democritus
%
I would rather discover one scientific fact than become King of Persia.
  -- Democritus
%
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is just opinion.
  -- Democritus
%
Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss.
  -- Democritus
%
It is better to destroy one's own errors than those of others.
  -- Democritus
%
What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything
else - is the fact that it exists.
  -- Archibald MacLeish
%
A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.
  -- Mary Jo Godwin
%
The library is the temple of learning, and learning has
liberated more people than all the wars in history.
  -- Carl T. Rowan
%
Research means that you don't know, but are willing to find out.
  -- Charles F. Kettering
%
As a general rule, the most successful man in life
is the man who has the best information.
  -- Benjamin Disraeli
%
You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure,
what you do not understand.
  -- Leonardo da Vinci
%
To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain
books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.
  -- Claude Adrien Helvetius
%
Book lovers never go to bed alone.
  -- Unknown
%
Freedom means learning to deal with being offended.
  -- Andrew Sullivan
%
No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account
not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
  -- Isaac Asimov
%
As I've said many times: the future is already here;
it's just not very evenly distributed.
  -- William Gibson
%
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer.
Art is everything else.
  -- Donald Knuth
%
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
  -- Thomas Jefferson
%
Knowledge: noun. The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
  -- Ambrose Bierce. "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be
driven into practice with courageous impatience.
  -- Admiral Hyman Rickover
%
Nothing ages people like not thinking.
  -- Christopher Morley
%
There are two types of people in the world:
  1. Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
%
What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying.
  -- Nikita Khrushchev
%
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
  -- Groucho Marx
%
I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns
it on, I go to the library and read a good book.
  -- Groucho Marx
%
There is no friend as loyal as a book.
  -- Ernest Hemingway
%
The book you don't read won't help.
  -- Jim Rohn
%
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth
has a chance to get its pants on.
  -- Winston Churchill
%
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak;
courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
  -- Winston Churchill
%
Eating words has never given me indigestion.
  -- Winston Churchill
%
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
  -- Henry David Thoreau
%
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
  -- Philip K. Dick
%
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
  -- Carl Sagan
%
Make way for liberty!
  -- Arnold von Winkelried
%
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches;
one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
  -- David Hume
%
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
%
All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
  -- Henry David Thoreau
%
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where
there is no path and leave a trail.
  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
%
It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures,
but the foolish to be a slave to them.
  -- Epictetus
%
Silence is safer than speech.
  -- Epictetus
%
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
  -- Epictetus
%
I threw my cup away when I saw a child drinking from his hands at the trough.
  -- Diogenes
%
The mob is the mother of tyrants.
  -- Diogenes
%
When I look upon men of science and philosophy, man is the wisest of all
beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible
as man.  -- Diogenes
%
The road uphill and the road downhill are one and the same.
  -- Heraclitus
%
Hypermediocrity
  -- Fischerspooner "Emerge"
%
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre,
but they are more deadly in the long run.
  -- Mark Twain
%
Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.
  -- Anonymous
%
If you're rich you can buy books. If you're poor, you need a library.
  -- John Kenneth Galbraith
%
A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.
  -- Henry Ward Beecher
%
My two favorite things in life are libraries and bicycles.  They both
move people forward without wasting anything.
  -- Pete Golkin
%
When I got my library card, that's when my life began.
  -- Rita Mae Brown.
%
To poke a wood fire is more solid enjoyment than almost
anything else in the world.
  -- Charles Dudley Warner
%
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
  -- Albert Einstein
%
Maybe a person's time would be as well spent raising
food as raising money to buy food.
  -- Frank A. Clark
%
The height of sophistication is simplicity.
  -- Clare Boothe Luce
%
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
  -- Socrates
%
Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.
  -- Donald Horban
%
I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass, make love, work when
they have to, bear their young.  I am sick with envy of them.
  -- Sherwood Anderson
%
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know
to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
  -- William Morris
%
If evil be spoken of you and it be true,
correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.
  -- Epictetus
%
No man is free who is not master of himself.
  -- Epictetus
%
A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth
is the truth even if nobody believes it.
  -- David Stevens
%
I never bought a man who wasn't for sale.
  -- William A. Clark
%
A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes"
merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
  -- Mahatma Gandhi
%
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
  -- Adlai Stevenson
%
A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe,
"the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
  -- Stephen Crane
%
And, because you have conceived of Gandalf the Grey in
your understanding, then he *MUST* exist in this world.
  -- Calvin Ramsay, in <k37p9v$ivr$1@dont-email.me>
%
I read too much. I thought we should kill ourselves.
She doesn't read a thing.  She believed me.
  -- Gord Downie, The Tragically Hip, "Highway Girl"
%
We buy books because we believe we're buying the time to read them.
  -- Warren Zevon
%
Enjoy every sandwich.
  -- Warren Zevon
%
If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong.
In that simple statement is the key to science.
  -- Richard Feynmann
%
Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that
never tires, and a touch that never hurts.
  -- Charles Dickens
%
What greater gift than the love of a cat.
  -- Charles Dickens
%
I have set my life upon a cast, and I will stand the hazard of the die
  -- William Shakespeare, "Richard III"
%
The younger the child, the greater the imagination.
  -- Randolf Richardson
%
The greatest gift that we can give to future generations is progress.
  -- Randolf Richardson
%
Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora.
  -- William of Occam. (c. 1323)
%
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds;
the pessimist fears it is true.
  -- James Branch Cabell
%
There is no right to deny freedom to any object with a mind advanced enough
to grasp the concept and desire the state.
  -- Isaac Asimov
%
I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.
  -- Nikos Kazantzakis
%
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
  -- John Donne
%
Everything that kills me makes me feel alive.
  -- OneRepublic "Counting Stars"
%
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
  -- T. S. Eliot "The Waste Land"
%
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our
institutions, great is our sin.
  -- Charles Darwin
%
Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
  -- Emo Phillips
%
I was sleeping the other night, alone, thanks to the exterminator.
  -- Emo Phillips
%
How many people here have telekenetic powers?  Raise my hand.
  -- Emo Phillips
%
I hear Mozart but I speak Daniel Johnson.
  -- samovar
%
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events,
and little minds discuss people.
  -- Eleanor Roosevelt
%
Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly
is better than not to think at all.
  -- Hypatia of Alexandria
%
Libraries will get you through times of no money better
than money will get you through times of no libraries.
  -- Anne Herbert
%
The tyranny of distance didn't stop the cavalier,
so why should it stop me?  I'll conquer and stay free.
  -- Split Enz, "Six months in a leaky boat"
%
Mens sana in corpore sano.
  -- Juvenal
%
Work keeps the 3 great evils at bay: boredom, vice, and want.
  -- Voltaire, "Candide"
%
He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool;
he that dares not reason is a slave.
  -- William Drummond
%
"Oh don't talk of love," the shadows purr, Murmuring me away from you
"Don't talk of worlds that never were, The end is all that's ever true."
  -- The Cure, "Burn"
%
It would be good to know that your volition was
capable and productive vs helpless.
  -- probablekarl in #philosophy on freewill.
%
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because
he could do only a little.
  -- Edmund Burke
%
We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid,
because freedom is priceless.
  -- Lech Walesa
%
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those
who falsely believe they are free.
  -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
%
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
  -- Diogenes
%
Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.
  -- George Washington Carver
%
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take
an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.
  -- Socrates
%
Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure.
Confidence is the greatest friend.
  -- Lao Tzu
%
We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.
  -- Diogenes
%
Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff.
  -- Will Rogers
%
I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art
that anybody could ever want to own.
  -- Andy Warhol
%
If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was
a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. And I'd despise the one who gave up.
  -- Abraham Maslow
%
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an
uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
  -- Helen Keller
%
True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.
  -- Clarence Darrow
%
Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.
  -- Woody Allen
%
A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.
  -- Marcus Aurelius
%
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
  -- Marcus Aurelius
%
And when no hope was left inside you on that starry, starry night, you took
your life as lovers often do; but I could have told you, Vincent, this world
was never meant for one as beautiful as you.  -- Don McLean, "Vincent"
%
Gotta have opposites, dark and light, light and dark in painting.  It's like
life.  Gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good
times come.  I'm waiting on the good times now.  -- Bob Ross
%
Give a man a mask and he will show his true face.
  -- Oscar Wilde
%
It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.
  -- Peter Drucker
%
The land of truth is pathless, each man must find his own way.
  -- J. Krishnamurti
%
It's not a crisis. It's only the end of an illusion.
  -- Anonymous
%
Comparison is the thief of joy.
  -- Theodore Roosevelt
%
Esse quam videri
  -- Cicero
%
Dum spiro spero
  -- Cicero
%
Dum vivimus vivamus
  -- Anonymous
%
Hope is the only good that is common to all men;
those who have nothing else possess hope still.
  -- Thales
%
Hope is a good thing.  Maybe the best of things.
And no good thing ever dies.
  -- Andy Dufresne, "The Shawshank Redemption"
%
Hope is a waking dream.
  -- Aristotle
%
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a
hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a
wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act
alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a
computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
  -- Robert A. Heinlein
%
If you end up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom,
your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how
to do your s~~~, then you deserve it.  -- Frank Zappa
%
Errare humanum est, in errore perservare stultum.
  -- Seneca
%
Be kind to those around you, don't be merciless;
remember me, for my name is Perseus.
  -- Unknown Brain, "Perseus"
%
Consider how hard it is to change yourself, and you'll understand what
little chance you have in trying to change others.
  -- Jacob M. Braude
%
Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in
my own perceptions - not outside.
  -- Marcus Aurelius
%
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The
Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often
engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an
emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real
world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
  -- John Rogers
%
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
  -- Confucius
%
There is no reciprocity. Men love women. Women love children. Children love
hamsters. Hamsters don't love anyone; it is quite hopeless.
  -- Alice Thomas Ellis
%
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
  -- Voltaire
%
"It's hard to let go, isn't it?" "Yes it is, Bill."
"Well, that's life...  what can I tell you."
  -- Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt, "Meet Joe Black"
%
But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the
idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like
would be glad to go home with his own.  -- Herodotus
%
Ignorance is bold, and knowledge is reserved.
  -- Thucydides
%
You should punish in the same manner those who commit crimes with those who
accuse falsely.
  -- Thucydides
%
Men who are capable of real action first make their plans and then go forward
without hesitation while their enemies have still not made up their minds.
  -- Thucydides
%
If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they
will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.
  -- David Frum
%
"But it was only that you were a good man of business, Jacob."
"Business?!  Mankind was my business!  The common welfare was my business!"
  -- Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol"
%
You gotta draw the line somewhere!  You gotta draw a f~~~~' line in the sand,
dude! You gotta make a statement! You gotta look inside yourself and say
"What am I willing to put up with today?"  NOT F~~~~~' THIS!!!
  -- Game Grumps
%
If a Dodge Challenger is a symbol of a mid-life crisis, which is the
renewed commitment to life as represented by a forthright drive to appear
fashionable, then a Dodge Avenger is a letter of resignation from the
obnoxious business of living.
  -- Mr. Regular, "Regular Car Reviews"
%
Beware those who seek constant crowds, for they are nothing alone.
  -- Charles Bukowski
%
I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad
side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated
freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere
power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive,
want a measure of control. but if you have, as it were taken 'a vow of
poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves
without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing,
then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become
utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless.
  -- J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter #144, on Tom Bombadil
%
Any kind of love is alright.
  -- Crash Test Dummies "Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead"
%
Peter Pumpkinhead was too good. Had him nailed to a chunk of wood
He died grinning on live TV, hanging there he looked a lot like you
And an awful lot like me!  -- XTC, Peter Pumpkinhead.
%
It's a helluva thing killin' a man.  Ya take away all he's got; and all he's ever
gonna have.
  -- William Munny "Unforgiven"
%
We all have it comin', kid.
  -- William Munny "Unforgiven"
%
A strange game.  The only winning move is not to play.
How about a nice game of chess?
  -- Joshua, "Wargames"
%
Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
  -- Massive Attack, "Teardrop"
%
Let's work the problem.  Don't make it worse by guessing.
  -- Gene Kranz, NASA.
%
If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are mostly concerned about
trees.
  -- Lao Tsu
%
Success is not final, failure is not fatal:
it is the courage to continue that counts.
  -- Winston Churchill
%
It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.
  -- Winston Churchill
%
As soon as I put on my uniform I felt a better man.
  -- Tommy Prince
%
There are no more barriers to cross; all I have in common with the
uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have
caused, and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. My pain is
constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone; in fact, I
want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape.  But even
after admitting this, there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude
me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself.  No new knowledge can be
extracted from my telling.  This confession has meant nothing.
  -- Patrick Bateman, "American Psycho"
%
1. A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no
trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all
such things imply weakness.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
2. Death is nothing to us; for that which has been dissolved into its elements
experiences no sensations, and that which has no sensation is nothing to us.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
3. 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.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
4. Continuous bodily pain does not last long; instead, pain, if extreme, is
present a very short time, and even that degree of pain which slightly exceeds
bodily pleasure does not last for many days at once. Diseases of long duration
allow an excess of bodily pleasure over pain.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
5. 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.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
6. In order to obtain protection from other men, any means for attaining this
end is a natural good.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
7. Some men want fame and status, thinking that they would thus make themselves
secure against other men. If the life of such men really were secure, they have
attained a natural good; if, however, it is insecure, they have not attained
the end which by nature's own prompting they originally sought.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
8. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but the things which produce certain
pleasures entail disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
9. If every pleasure had been capable of accumulation, not only over time but
also over the entire body or at least over the principal parts of our nature,
then pleasures would never differ from one another.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
10. If the things that produce the pleasures of profligate men really freed
them from fears of the mind concerning celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the
fear of death, and the fear of pain; if, further, they taught them to limit
their desires, we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for
they would then be filled with pleasures from every source and would never have
pain of body or mind, which is what is bad.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
11. If we had never been troubled by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor
by fears about death, nor by our ignorance of the limits of pains and desires,
we should have had no need of natural science.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
12. 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.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
13. There is no advantage to obtaining protection from other men so long as we
are alarmed by events above or below the earth or in general by whatever
happens in the boundless universe.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
14. Protection from other men, secured to some extent by the power to expel and
by material prosperity, in its purest form comes from a quiet life withdrawn
from the multitude.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
15. The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the
wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
16. Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest
interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole
life.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
17. The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the
utmost disturbance.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
18. Bodily pleasure does not increase when the pain of want has been removed;
after that it only admits of variation. The limit of mental pleasure, however,
is reached when we reflect on these bodily pleasures and their related
emotions, which used to cause the mind the greatest alarms.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
19. Unlimited time and limited time afford an equal amount of pleasure, if we
measure the limits of that pleasure by reason.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
20. The flesh receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure; and to provide it
requires unlimited time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and
limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of the future, procures a
complete and perfect life, and we have no longer any need of unlimited time.
Nevertheless the mind does not shun pleasure, and even when circumstances make
death imminent, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the best life.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
21. 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.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
22. 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.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
23. If you fight against all your sensations, you will have no standard to
which to refer, and thus no means of judging even those sensations which you
claim are false.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
24. If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to
distinguish between opinion about things awaiting confirmation and that which
is already confirmed to be present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in
any application of intellect to the presentations, you will confuse the rest of
your sensations by your groundless opinion and so you will reject every
standard of truth. If in your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as
true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which does not, you will not
avoid error, as you will be maintaining the entire basis for doubt in every
judgment between correct and incorrect opinion.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
25. If you do not on every occasion refer each of your actions to the ultimate
end prescribed by nature, but instead of this in the act of choice or avoidance
turn to some other end, your actions will not be consistent with your theories.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
26. All desires that do not lead to pain when they remain unsatisfied are
unnecessary, but the desire is easily got rid of, when the thing desired is
difficult to obtain or the desires seem likely to produce harm.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
27. Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the
whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
28. The same conviction which inspires confidence that nothing we have to fear
is eternal or even of long duration, also enables us to see that in the limited
evils of this life nothing enhances our security so much as friendship.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
29. Of our desires some are natural and necessary, others are natural but not
necessary; and others are neither natural nor necessary, but are due to
groundless opinion.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
30. Those natural desires which entail no pain when unsatisfied, though pursued
with an intense effort, are also due to groundless opinion; and it is not
because of their own nature they are not got rid of but because of man's
groundless opinions.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
31. Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from
harming or being harmed by another.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
32. Those animals which are incapable of making binding agreements with one
another not to inflict nor suffer harm are without either justice or injustice;
and likewise for those peoples who either could not or would not form binding
agreements not to inflict nor suffer harm.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
33. There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made
in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing
against the infliction or suffering of harm.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
34. Injustice is not an evil in itself, but only in consequence of the fear
which is associated with the apprehension of being discovered by those
appointed to punish such actions.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
35. It is impossible for a man who secretly violates the terms of the agreement
not to harm or be harmed to feel confident that he will remain undiscovered,
even if he has already escaped ten thousand times; for until his death he is
never sure that he will not be detected.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
36. In general justice is the same for all, for it is something found mutually
beneficial in men's dealings, but in its application to particular places or
other circumstances the same thing is not necessarily just for everyone.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
37. Among the things held to be just by law, whatever is proved to be of
advantage in men's dealings has the stamp of justice, whether or not it be the
same for all; but if a man makes a law and it does not prove to be mutually
advantageous, then this is no longer just. And if what is mutually advantageous
varies and only for a time corresponds to our concept of justice, nevertheless
for that time it is just for those who do not trouble themselves about empty
words, but look simply at the facts.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
38. Where without any change in circumstances the things held to be just by law
are seen not to correspond with the concept of justice in actual practice, such
laws are not really just; but wherever the laws have ceased to be advantageous
because of a change in circumstances, in that case the laws were for that time
just when they were advantageous for the mutual dealings of the citizens, and
subsequently ceased to be just when they were no longer advantageous.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
39. The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family
all the creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat
as aliens; and where he finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings,
and, so far as is advantageous, excludes them from his life.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"
%
40. Those who possess the power to defend themselves against threats by their
neighbors, being thus in possession of the surest guarantee of security, live
the most pleasant life with one another; and their enjoyment of the fullest
intimacy is such that if one of them dies prematurely, the others do not lament
his death as though it called for pity.
  -- Epicurus "Principal Doctrines"