Special Resources


Recommended Reading List (books and texts). We have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following:


  1. "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt
  2. The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.
  3. "On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"
  4. "Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
  5. The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."
  6. Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
  7. Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
  8. The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
  9. A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
  10. Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
  11. Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
  12. "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.


EpicureanFriends Online Epicurean Philosophy Gatherings (members only)