#letter to menoeceus

[philosophybitmaps]

[quotessentially]

From Epicurus’s Letter to Menoeceus

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[filmcentury]

Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.

Epicurus (341 – 270 BCE), Letter to Menoeceus, as translated in Stoic and Epicurean (1910) by Robert Drew Hicks

[hedansc]

"First of all, believe that a god is an incorruptible and happy being, as the common opinion of the world dictates; and attach to your theology nothing which is inconsistent with incorruptibility or with happiness; and think that a deity is invested with everything which is able to preserve this happiness, in conjunction with incorruptibility. For there are gods; for our knowledge of them is distinct. But they are not of the character which people in general attribute to them; for they do not pay a respect to them which accords with the ideas that they entertain of them. And that man is not impious who discards the gods believed in by the many, but he who applies to the gods the opinions entertained of them by the many. For the assertions of the many about the gods are not anticipations, but false opinions. And in consequence of these, the greatest evils which befall wicked men, and the benefits which are conferred on the good, are all attributed to the gods; for they connect all their ideas of them with a comparison of human virtues, and everything which is different from human qualities, they regard as incompatible with the divine nature."

- Epicurus, Letter to Menoikeus

[philosophybits]

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.

Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

One must practice the things which produce happiness, since if that is present we have everything, and if it is absent we do everything in order to have it.

from Letter to Menoeceus by Epicurus

[schyuler]

We have been born once and cannot be born a second time; for all eternity we shall no longer exist. But you, although you are not in control of tomorrow, are postponing your happiness. Life is wasted by delaying, and each one of us dies without enjoying leisure.

— Epicurus

[karlyanalora]

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.

Epicurus in his Letter to Menoeceus

[philosophybitmaps]

[quotessentially]

From Epicurus’s Letter to Menoeceus

[relatablepoetryandquotes]

“We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.” - Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus

[barcarole]

I saw pictures of philosophical texts & i was wondering for someone who's interested in reading philosophy where should i start?

Philosophy is an ample spectrum of diverse subjects, perspectives, and unanswered questions. I’m by no means an expert, but below are several works that can serve as an introduction. I have also included second-hand reference/guide books, as well as databases, courses, and podcasts that can help for general orientation. Feel free to explore as you wish (don’t feel too compelled to follow linearity — rather your own instinct and interest). Keep in mind that philosophy is not just about studying ideas and notions, but also about your judgment and reaction towards these according to your own experience or speculation. It’s also about questioning your own beliefs in different areas and discovering your own standpoint. It’s preferable to have a historical notion of influence, context, and consequence, but it should be a stimulating endeavor for you. Discovery shouldn’t feel like a chore but a challenge. You will eventually find yourself drawn to particular conceptions and thinkers that will create more questions and compel you to explore certain areas more than others. [Other kinds of literature are complementary to philosophy, so I have also included texts that might aid and encourage further inquiry].

Philosophical Works

The Upanishads

Tao Te Ching, Laozi

Meno | Theaetetus | Phaedo, Plato

Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle

Letter to Menoeceus | Principal Doctrines, Epicurus

Enchiridion, Epictetus

Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

Letters from a Stoic, Seneca

Of Idleness | That It Is Folly… | Of Experience, Michel de Montaigne

Discourse of the Method | Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume

On the Improvement of Understanding, Baruch Spinoza

Political Writings, Voltaire

Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals | Prolegomena, Immanuel Kant

Aesthetic and Philosophical Essays, Friedrich Schiller

A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollenstonecraft

Essays and Aphorisms, Arthur Schopenhauer

Fear and Trembling | The Sickness Unto Death, Soren Kierkegaard

The Gay Science | On the Genealogy of Morality | The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche

All Things Are Possible, Lev Shestov

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin

In Praise of Shadows, Junichiro Tanizaki

The Myth of Sysiphus | The Rebel, Albert Camus

The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir

The Human Condition | Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt

The World of Perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Discourse on Colonialism, Aimé Cesaire

Mythologies, Roland Barthes

On Beauty, Umberto Eco

Philosophical Literature

[Aeschylus (The Oresteia), Euripides (The Bacchae), Horace (Satires), Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds), Rumi (Masnavi), Petrarch (Secretum), Lawrence Sterne (The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman), Voltaire (Candide | Micromégas), Denis Diderot (Rameau’s Nephew), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment | Notes from Underground), Ivan Turgenev (Fathers and Sons), Chekhov (Ward No. 6 | The Black Monk), J. W. von Goethe (Elective Affinities), Edgar Allan Poe (The Imp of the Perverse), Honoré de Balzac (The Magic Skin), Oscar Wilde (The Portrait of Dorian Gray), Franza Kafka (In the Penal Colony | Before the Law | A Country Doctor), Thomas Mann (Death in Venice | Disillusionment), Stefan Zweig (The Royal Game), Albert Camus (The Stranger | The Fall | The Plague), Dino Buzatti (The Tartar Steppe), Natsume Soseki (Kusamakura), Christa Wolf (No Place on Earth), Maurice Blanchot (The Madness of Day), Jorge Luis Borges (The Library of Babel), Samuel Beckett (Molloy), Ernesto Sábato (On Heroes and Tombs), James Baldwin (Just Above My Head), Roland Barthes (A Lover’s Discourse), Thomas Bernhard (Wittgenstein’s Nephew), Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: Lectures and Speeches) Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon)]

Reference Books

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy

History of Philosophy, William Turner

A History of Women Philosophers, Vol I | Vol. II | Vol. III | Vol. IV

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius

History of Western and Eastern Philosophy, Radha Krishan

Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy, Brian Carr & Indira Mahalingam

Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts, Joel Kupperman

History of Islamic Philosophy, Henry Corbin

A Short History of African Philosophy, Barry Hallen

Sadhana, Rabindranath Tagore

Databases

The Internet Classics Archive

Monoskop

Early Modern Texts

Forgotten Books

E-Books Directory

Gutenberg

UC Press

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Philosophy Pages

Marxists.org

Online Library of Liberty

Lucian of Samosata

Ontology/History of Logic

Medieval Philosophy

Ethiopian Philosophy

Free Online Courses/Podcasts

King’s College London, LMU

Coursera

University of Oxford

MIT

OpenCulture

The University of Edinburgh

Open Yale Courses

[philosophyquotes]

When we say that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.

Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus

[philosophybits]

We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.

Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

Death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist. Therefore, it is relevant neither to the living nor to the dead, since it does not affect the former, and the latter do not exist.

from Letter to Menoeceus by Epicurus