Fundamental Articles
William Wallace
As presented in Epicureanism (1880)
1. “The blessed and incorruptible has no toil or trouble of its own, and causes none to others. It is not subject either to anger or favour.” (110)
2. “Death is nothing to us. That into which dissolution brings us has no feeling or consciousness, and what has no consciousness is nothing to us. (110)
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5. “It is impossible to live pleasantly without living wisely,and well, and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well, and justly, without living pleasantly.” (155)
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7. “It was not because sovereignty and dominion were intrinsically good that men sought for fame and glory in society, but in order to fence themselves round from their men.” (158)
8. “No pleasure is evil in itself, but the objects productive of certain pleasures may lead to annoyances many times greater than the pleasure.” (150)
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14. When safety on the side of man has been tolerably secured, it is by quiet and by withdrawing from the multitude that the most complete tranquility is to be found.” (163)
15. “Riches, according to nature, are of limited extent, and can easily be procured; but the wealth craved after by vain fancies knows neither end nor limit.” (146)
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18. “When once the pain arising from deficiency has been removed,the pleasure in the flesh admits of no further augmentation, but only of variation: and similarly the limit of the pleasure of the mind is reached, when the causes of our principal mental fears have been removed.” (144)
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20. “[T]he flesh takes the limits of pleasure to be endless,and an endless time would be needed to provide it; but the mind, having learned the limit and the end of the flesh, and having cast away fears about the distant future, has made for us life perfect and adequate, and we no longer need infinite time. And yet it has not been an exile from pleasure,and when the time comes to depart from life, it closes with no sense of having fallen short of felicity .” (149)
21. “He who has understood the limits of life, knows how easy to get is all that takes away the pain of want, and all that is required to make our life perfect at every point. In this way he has no need of anything which implies a contest.” (146-147)
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31. “Natural Justice is a contract of expedience, so as to prevent on man doing harm to another.” (162)
32. “Those animals which were incapable of forming an agreement to end that they neither might injure nor be injured are without either justice or injustice. Similarly, those tribes which could not or would not form a covenant to the same end are in a like predicament.” (162)
33. “There is no such thing as an intrinsic or abstract justice” (162)
34.“Injustice is not in itself a bad thing: but only in the fear arising from anxiety on the part of the wrong-doer that he will not always escape punishment.” (162)
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