Epicurus and the Pleasant Life: Friendship, Simplicity, Calm

Today the word "epicure" suggests someone devoted to fine food and wine. The philosopher the word comes from had rather different tastes. According to the ancient biographer Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus wrote in his letters that he was content with water and plain bread, and once asked a friend, "Send me some Cytherean cheese, that if I wish to have a feast, I may have the means."

Epicurus did teach that pleasure is the goal of life. But what he meant by pleasure was mostly the absence of pain and worry, reached through simple living, good friends and clear thinking about what we fear. This guide explains his core ideas, quotes him from a public-domain translation, and suggests a few ways to try his approach in an ordinary week.

Who Epicurus Was

Epicurus lived from 341 to 270 BCE. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that, after teaching in Mytilene and Lampsacus, he returned to Athens in 307 or 306 BCE and bought the property that became known as the Garden, a name later used for his school itself. Diogenes Laertius reports that friends came from all quarters to live with him there, and he quotes an earlier writer, Diocles, saying that they all lived in the most simple and economical manner.

Much of what survives of Epicurus's own words comes from Book 10 of Diogenes Laertius's Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, which preserves three of his letters, including the Letter to Menoeceus on ethics, along with a collection of brief sayings called the Principal Doctrines. Parts of his major work, On Nature, have also been recovered in damaged condition from papyrus rolls buried at Herculaneum by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The quotations below come from C. D. Yonge's 19th-century translation, available on Project Gutenberg.

What Epicurus Meant by Pleasure

In the Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus anticipates the misunderstanding his philosophy would face: "When, therefore, we say that pleasure is a chief good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of the debauched man, or those which lie in sensual enjoyment, as some think who are ignorant." Instead, he writes, "we mean the freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from confusion."

The Stanford Encyclopedia explains that the two parts of this goal are often called aponia, the absence of bodily pain, and ataraxia, freedom from mental disturbance. Epicurus also distinguished two kinds of pleasure. "Kinetic" pleasures come from activity or change, such as a pleasant smell or sound. "Static" or catastematic pleasure is the settled state of being free from pain and distress, and that calm state was what he prized most.

Epicurus did not tell people to grab every pleasure. In the same letter he says that "every pleasure is therefore a good on account of its own nature, but it does not follow that every pleasure is worthy of being chosen," and that some pains are worth accepting when a greater pleasure follows. His ethics is really a practice of weighing: what will actually leave you more at peace over time?

Three Kinds of Desire

One of Epicurus's most practical tools is a simple sorting of desires. In Yonge's translation of the Principal Doctrines: "Of the desires, some are natural and necessary, some natural, but not necessary, and some are neither natural nor necessary, but owe their existence to vain opinions."

Diogenes Laertius adds examples. Drinking when you are thirsty satisfies a natural and necessary desire. Expensive food is natural but not necessary, since it only varies a pleasure rather than removing a pain. Desires for honors such as crowns, or for statues erected in one's name, are neither natural nor necessary.

The point is not that the second and third kinds are evil. It is that they are optional, and the third kind has no natural limit. As another of the sayings puts it, "The riches of nature are defined and easily procurable; but vain desires are insatiable."

The Case for Simple Pleasures

Epicurus argued that simple living is not a sacrifice but a kind of freedom. In the Letter to Menoeceus, he writes that "those men enjoy luxury most completely who are the best able to do without it," and that "everything which is natural is easily provided." Getting used to simple, inexpensive habits, he says, also makes us "fearless with respect to fortune," because we know we can be content with little.

He did not reject treats. When a richer meal comes along, he suggests, someone used to simple fare can enjoy it all the more. The cheese request shows the same spirit: a feast now and then, without needing one.

Friendship at the Center

For a philosopher of pleasure, Epicurus wrote remarkably warmly about friends. In Yonge's translation, one of the Principal Doctrines reads: "Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship."

The Stanford Encyclopedia notes that Epicurus held that a wise person would feel the torture of a friend no less than their own, and would die for a friend rather than betray them. Scholars still debate how this fits with his focus on one's own tranquility, since he also said friendship begins from usefulness yet is worth choosing for its own sake.

His last letter, written to his friend Idomeneus while he was in severe pain from illness, shows these ideas in practice. "We have written this letter to you on a happy day to us, which is also the last day of our life," it begins. He says that the cheerfulness that comes from remembering his philosophical conversations counterbalances his suffering, and he asks his friend to look after the children of Metrodorus, whose devotion to him and to philosophy he recalls.

Freedom from Fear

Epicurus believed that much human misery comes from fear, especially fear of the gods and fear of death. He held that the gods exist but, as the Stanford Encyclopedia puts it, do not interest themselves in human affairs, so they are not to be feared.

On death, his argument is famous: "the most formidable of all evils, death, is nothing to us, since, when we exist, death is not present to us; and when death is present, then we have no existence." Whether or not you find the argument convincing, its aim is practical: to stop dreading something we will never actually experience as a harm.

He also tried to shrink the fear of pain, arguing in the Principal Doctrines that the most intense pain does not last long. Many people who live with chronic pain will find that claim too tidy, and a philosophy is not a substitute for medical care. But the broader habit, noticing how much of our suffering comes from anticipation, is one many readers still find useful.

Trying It This Week

1. Sort a want. Next time you crave something, ask which of the three kinds of desire it belongs to.
2. Practice enough. Have one deliberately simple meal and notice how much pleasure it actually gives.
3. Invest in a friend. Epicurus treated friendship as the most important thing wisdom provides. Make one call or plan one unhurried visit.
4. Name the fear. When worry spikes, ask whether you are suffering from the event or from imagining it.

If fear, grief or worry feels overwhelming, a licensed professional can help. If you are in crisis in the US, call or text 988.

Key takeaways

• For Epicurus, the highest pleasure was a calm state: freedom from bodily pain and mental disturbance.
• He sorted desires into natural and necessary, natural but unnecessary, and empty ones that can never be satisfied.
• Simple habits, he argued, make us freer and better able to enjoy occasional luxuries.
• He ranked friendship as the most important thing wisdom provides for a happy life.
• His arguments about the gods, death and pain aimed to free people from needless fear.

Sources

• Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book 10 (Life of Epicurus), translated by C. D. Yonge, Project Gutenberg
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Epicurus (substantive revision July 8, 2022)
• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline