Dhananjay Jagannathan

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The Principal Doctrines of Epicurus
The Principal Doctrines ( , Kyriai Doxai) are a collection of
40 sayings attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus (340-271 BC),
quoted in the later compilation of Diogenes Laertius. Herein are
preserved the core ethical beliefs of the philosophical school of
Epicureanism, excerpted and arranged for the ease of memorization
of its adherents. As Cicero asks of Torquatus in de finibus, "Who
among you Epicureans has not learned by heart the Kyriai Doxai or
Principal Doctrines, since these briefly stated maxims are your most
eminent guide to happy living?" (II.vii.20)

The doctrines are presented below as a work in progress. Each row

contains the Greek text (from H. Usener's Epicurea, Leipzig: Teubner,
1887) and a translation of my own (you may wish to compare the
translation by Robert Drew Hicks in MIT's Internet Classics Archive).
Here are some other online resources on Epicurus and his school.

No.
1

Greek

Translation

. A blessed and immortal
nature neither has trouble nor provides it to another, so it is
affected neither by anger nor by favors, since every thing of
this kind belongs to weakness.

2
,
.
Death does not affect us, since in a
state of dissolution there is no perception, and with no perception we
are unaffected.
3

. , ,
.
The
removal of all pain is the limit of the quantity of pleasures. Whenever
pleasure is present, for however long it lasts, neither physical nor
mental pain can occur.

4
,
,


.
Pain does not last continuously in the body. Rather, acute
pain lasts the shortest time, and even that which just exceeds
pleasure is not present for many days in the body. Long-lasting
diseases too allow an excess of pleasure over pain in the body.
5

< >
,
, .
One cannot live pleasantly
without living prudently and nobly and justly, nor can one live
prudently and nobly and justly without living pleasantly. When anyone
does not have one of these things, for example, not living prudently,
though he lives nobly and justly, this man cannot live pleasantly.
6
,
.
For the sake of having
nothing to fear from people, whatever one may use to provide this
was a natural good.
7
,
.
,
,
.
Some wish to become well-reputed and
admired from all corners, thinking that they would acquire safety from
people in this way. Now, if the life of this sort is safe, they get what is
naturally good, but if it is not safe, they do not have what they set out
for according to their natural instinct.
8

.
No
pleasure is bad in itself, but the things that produce certain pleasures
bring on many times more difficulties than the pleasures themselves.
9

,
. If every pleasure were condensed and
were present over time and throughout the whole organism or the
most important parts of its nature, the pleasures would never differ
from each other.

10


, ,
,
,
.
If the things that produce the pleasures of the
morally irredeemable removed the mental fears surrounding heavenly
phenomena and death and pains, and also taught the limit of desires,
we would not have anything to blame them for, since they would have
their fill of pleasures from every source and they would never have
physical or mental pain, which is just what is bad.
11

, ,
,
.
If we were never troubled by worries about heavenly
phenomena or about whether death was at all an issue for us and also
not comprehending the limits of pain and desire, we would not need
to also study nature.
12

,
.
. One could not dispel fear concerning the most
important things if one did not know the nature of the universe and
feared anything mythical. Therefore, one cannot have unmixed
pleasure without studying nature.
13


.
There is no benefit to procuring
safety for ourselves from people if we fear what is above us or below
the earth or absolutely anything in the universe.
14


.
When one has
safety from people up to a certain point, by some degree of
supportive power and wealth comes the truest form of safety in peace
and retirement from the mob.
15

. Natural wealth is both
bounded and easily procured. Wealth on the basis of baseless
opinions slips into the void.

16
,
.
Fortune
scarcely intrudes on the wise man. Reason governs his greatest and
most important affairs throughout the entirety of his life.
17
,
.
The just man is least disturbed. The unjust man is full of
the greatest disturbance.
18
,
,

,
. Pleasure in the body does not increase when the pain
from need is removed once; it only varies. But the limit of pleasure in
the mind is produced by reckoning those things themselves and what
attaches to them that present the greatest fears to the mind.
19
,
. Infinite and finite
time provide equal pleasure if one measures out the limits of the
pleasure itself by reason.
20

.

,
<>
,
. The body receives the limits of
pleasure as infinite, and infinite time would provide it. But the mind
by reckoning the end and limit of the body and by dispelling the fears
of eternity, procures a perfect life, and no longer needs infinite time.
Nevertheless, neither does it flee pleasure, nor even in the end, when
circumstances furnish a departure from life, is it deprived by lacking
anything of the best life.
21

<>
.
He who understands the limits of life knows how easy it is to
procure both the removal of pain from need and the arrangement of a
perfect life. Therefore, he has no further need of things that incur
struggles.

22
,

.
We must ultimately take into account what actually
exists and all that is self-evident to which we refer our judgments. If
we do not, everything will be full of confusion and disorder.
23
,
. If you
dispute all perceptions, you will have nothing by which to judge when
you claim that they are false.
24


,
,
.
,
'
.
If you reject every single
perception and do not distinguish between an opinion yet to be
confirmed and one already present through sense or emotions or the
entire imaginative faculty of the mind, you will confuse the rest of
your senses by your foolish belief and end up rejecting the entire
standard for truth. If you treat as valid both everything that awaits
confirmation in your ideas based on opinions and what does not, you
will not avoid being deceived and you will end up removing all room
for dispute and being unable to discriminate correct and incorrect
judgments.
25

,
,
. If you do not on every occasion refer each of your actions
to the goal set down by nature, but instead twist about, referring your
act of avoidance or choice to something else, your actions will not
follow your arguments.
26

,
, <>
. All desires that do not lead to pain if unsatisfied are not
necessary. Rather, the impulse can be easily dissolved when the
desires are for what is hard to get or are considered harmful.

27

, . Of all the
things wisdom procures for the sake of blessedness in ones entire
life, the greatest by far is the acquisition of friends.
28

,
. The same
judgment that makes us confident that nothing terrible is eternal or
long-lasting also recognizes that friends supply safety most of all
given our limited circumstances.
29
<
> ,
. Some of our desires are natural and
necessary, others natural but not necessary, and some are neither
natural nor necessary, but come about through baseless opinions.
30
,
, ,
,
.
In cases of natural
desires which do not lead to pain if unsatisfied, when the zeal is
intense, these come about through baseless opinions. When they are
not dissolved, it is not due to their own nature, but to the baseless
opinion of the person.
31

. Natural justice is a token of
the usefulness in not harming one another or being harmed.
32

,

.
All animals that cannot make contracts for the sake of not
harming or being harmed, for these there is neither justice nor
injustice. Likewise, all the peoples that cannot or do not wish to make
contracts for the sake of not harming or being harmed.
33
,

. Absolute justice never existed, only
contracts for the sake of not harming or being harmed, made in
mutual associations in every place, whatever its size.

34
,
, .
Injustice is not an absolute evil, but only because of the fear
aroused by the suspicion that the wayward will not escape the notice
of the overseers of such matters.
35

, ,
.
.
Someone who secretly rebels against any of the
things mutually agreed upon for the sake of not harming or being
harmed cannot be confident he will escape notice, even if he has
escaped ten thousand times up to now. For until his demise it will be
unclear whether he has in fact escaped.
36
<> ,

.
Justice in the abstract is the same for all, for it is something
useful in mutual association. It does not follow that justice in the
particular is the same for all, given the place and all other such
causes.
37

, ,
. ,
,
.
, ,

. What is attested
to be useful among the needs of mutual association has the stamp of
justice, whether it is the same for all or not. But if someone makes a
law, but it does not turn out to be useful for common association, no
longer does it have the form of justice. And if the usefulness in the
law varies and suits the preconception only for a given time, no less
was it just for that time, provided one looks to the facts and is not
confused by empty words.
38


, .
,
',
,

. When nothing new happens in the prevailing

circumstances, but the recognized laws prove not to suit the
preonception as a matter of fact, these things are not just. But when
new circumstances come about and the established laws are no
longer useful, these laws were once just, when they were useful for
mutual association of fellow-citizens, but are no longer just, when
they are not useful.
39


, ,
.
He who was least
prepared to be safe from external foes made kin of all those he could.
Those he could not, he at least did not make alien. And where even
this was not possible, he avoided contact and so far as it was
advantageous to do appeased them.
40

,
,

. All those who are especially
capable of providing themselves safety from their neighbours, thus
also live out their lives most pleasantly with each other, since they
have the securest assurance, and having the fullest familiarity, they
do not mourn as though the demise of one who dies merits pity.