Comparison of Topics: Principal Doctrines vs. Letter to Menoeceus
| Full list of topics | Principal Doctrines | Letter to Menoeceus | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| The gods are blessed and untroubled, free of anger or favor. | 1. The blessed and immortal nature knows no trouble itself nor causes trouble to any other, so that it is never constrained by anger or favour. For all such things exist only in the weak. | First of all believe that god is a being immortal and blessed, even as the common idea of a god is engraved on men's minds, and do not assign to him anything alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness… For gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision. But they are not such as the many believe them to be… And the impious man is not he who popularly denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many. | In Both |
| Death is nothing to us, since it is the privation of all sensation. | 2. Death is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved is without sensation; and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us. | Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us. For all good and evil consists in sensation, but death is deprivation of sensation. And therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality. | In Both |
| The quantitative limit of pleasure is the complete removal of pain. | 3. The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body nor of mind, nor of both at once. | And so plain savours bring us a pleasure equal to a luxurious diet, when all the pain due to want is removed; and bread and water produce the highest pleasure, when one who needs them puts them to his lips. | In Both |
| Bodily pain is short-lived or endurable; even chronic illness permits more pleasure than pain. | 4. Pain does not last continuously in the flesh, but the acutest pain is there for a very short time, and even that which just exceeds the pleasure in the flesh does not continue for many days at once. But chronic illnesses permit a predominance of pleasure over pain in the flesh. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| The pleasant life and the virtuous life (prudence, honor, justice) are inseparable. | 5. It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently and honorably and justly, [nor again to live a life of prudence, honor, and Justice] without living pleasantly. And the man who does not possess the pleasant life, is not living prudently and honorably and justly, [and the man who does not possess the virtuous life], cannot possibly live pleasantly. | Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is prudence. Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy: for from prudence are sprung all the other virtues, and it teaches us that it is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently and honorably and justly, (nor, again, to live a life of prudence, honor, and justice) without living pleasantly. For the virtues are by nature bound up with the pleasant life, and the pleasant life is inseparable from them. | In Both |
| Security from other men is a natural good, however it is obtained. | 6. To secure protection from men anything is a natural good, by which you may be able to attain this end. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Some seek fame and prominence as a strategy for safety, not as an end in itself. | 7. Some men wished to become famous and conspicuous, thinking that they would thus win for themselves safety from other men. Wherefore if the life of such men is safe, they have obtained the good which nature craves; but if it is not safe, they do not possess that for which they strove at first by the instinct of nature. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| No pleasure is bad in itself, but some pleasures come bundled with disproportionate disturbance. | 8. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself: but the means which produce some pleasures bring with them disturbances many times greater than the pleasures. | And since pleasure is the first good and natural to us, for this very reason we do not choose every pleasure, but sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater discomfort accrues to us as the result of them… Every pleasure then because of its natural kinship to us is good, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen: even as every pain also is an evil, yet not all are always of a nature to be avoided. | In Both |
| If every pleasure could be intensified without limit, no pleasure would differ from any other. | 9. If every pleasure could be intensified so that it lasted and influenced the whole organism or the most essential parts of our nature, pleasures would never differ from one another. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Even a profligate's pleasures would be blameless if they truly dispelled fear, taught the limits of desire, and produced a life of pleasure. | 10. If the things that produce the pleasures of profligates could dispel the fears of the mind about the phenomena of the sky and death and its pains, and also teach the limits of desires (and of pains), we should never have cause to blame them: for they would be filling themselves full with pleasures from every source and never have pain of body or mind, which is the evil of life. | When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in sensuality, as is supposed by some who are either ignorant or disagree with us or do not understand, but freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind. | In Both |
| Even without fear of the heavens and of death, we would still need natural science to grasp the limits of pain and desire. | 11. If we were not troubled by our suspicions of the phenomena of the sky and about death, fearing that it concerns us, and also by our failure to grasp the limits of pains and desires, we should have no need of natural science. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Fear of the most important matters cannot be dispelled without knowledge of the universe's true nature. | 12. A man cannot dispel his fear about the most important matters if he does not know what is the nature of the universe but suspects the truth of some mythical story. So that without natural science it is not possible to attain our pleasures unalloyed. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Security from men is worthless if the heavens and the afterlife remain objects of suspicion. | 13. There is no profit in securing protection in relation to men, if things above and things beneath the earth and indeed all in the boundless universe remain matters of suspicion. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| True security comes from a quiet life and withdrawal, not from power or wealth. | 14. The most unalloyed source of protection from men, which is secured to some extent by a certain force of expulsion, is in fact the immunity which results from a quiet life and the retirement from the world. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Natural wealth is limited and easy to obtain; wealth defined by empty opinion is limitless. | 15. The wealth demanded by nature is both limited and easily procured; that demanded by idle imaginings stretches on to infinity. | not that we may at all times enjoy but a few things, but that, if we do not possess many, we may enjoy the few in the genuine persuasion that those have the sweetest pleasure in luxury who least need it, and that all that is natural is easy to be obtained, but that which is superfluous is hard. | In Both |
| Chance rarely troubles the wise man; reason governs the greatest matters of a lifetime. | 16. In but few things chance hinders a wise man, but the greatest and most important matters reason has ordained and throughout the whole period of life does and will ordain. | As to chance, he does not regard it as a god as most men do (for in a god's acts there is no disorder), nor as an uncertain cause (of all things) for he does not believe that good and evil are given by chance to man for the framing of a blessed life, but that opportunities for great good and great evil are afforded by it. | In Both |
| The just man is free from disturbance; the unjust man is full of it. | 17. The just man is most free from trouble, the unjust most full of trouble. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Bodily pleasure cannot be increased past the removal of pain, only varied. | 18. The pleasure in the flesh is not increased, when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied: and the limit as regards pleasure in the mind is begotten by the reasoned understanding of these very pleasures and of the emotions akin to them, which used to cause the greatest fear to the mind. | And so plain savours bring us a pleasure equal to a luxurious diet, when all the pain due to want is removed; and bread and water produce the highest pleasure, when one who needs them puts them to his lips. | In Both |
| Infinite time holds no more pleasure than a limited span, rightly reasoned. | 19. Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures by reason the limits of pleasure. | And just as with food he does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant. | In Both |
| The mind, having reasoned out the flesh's true limits, supplies a complete life without needing endless time. | 20. The flesh perceives the limits of pleasure as unlimited, and unlimited time is required to supply it. But the mind, having attained a reasoned understanding of the ultimate good of the flesh and its limits and having dissipated the fears concerning the time to come, supplies us with the complete life, and we have no further need of infinite time… | And therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality. | In Both |
| Knowing life's true limits removes the need to compete for more. | 21. He who has learned the limits of life knows that that which removes the pain due to want and makes the whole of life complete is easy to obtain, so that there is no need of actions which involve competition. | He understands that the limit of good things is easy to fulfill and easy to attain, whereas the course of ills is either short in time or slight in pain. | In Both |
| Every judgment must be weighed against the true end and the evidence of direct perception. | 22. We must consider both the real purpose and all the evidence of direct perception, to which we always refer the conclusions of opinion; otherwise, all will be full of doubt and confusion. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Rejecting all sensations leaves no standard by which to call anything false. | 23. If you fight against all sensations, you will have no standard by which to judge even those of them which you say are false. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Confusing confirmed sensation with unconfirmed opinion corrupts every standard of judgment. | 24. If you reject any single sensation and fail to distinguish between the conclusion of opinion as to the appearance awaiting confirmation and that which is actually given by the sensation or feeling, or each intuitive apprehension of the mind, you will confound all other sensations as well with the same groundless opinion, so that you will reject every standard of judgment. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Choice and avoidance must always be referred back to nature's true end. | 25. If on each occasion, instead of referring your actions to the end of nature, you turn to some other nearer standard when you are making a choice or an avoidance, your actions will not be consistent with your principles. | The right understanding of these facts enables us to refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and (the soul's) freedom from disturbance, since this is the aim of the life of blessedness. | In Both |
| Desires that are not necessary for happiness are easily dispelled when hard to satisfy. | 26. Of desires, all that do not lead to a sense of pain, if they are not satisfied, are not necessary, but involve a craving which is easily dispelled, when the object is hard to procure or they seem likely to produce harm. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Of all wisdom provides for a blessed life, friendship is by far the greatest. | 27. Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| The same confidence that evils do not last forever also secures the protection of friendship. | 28. The same conviction which has given us confidence that there is nothing terrible that lasts forever or even for long, has also seen the protection of friendship most fully completed in the limited evils of this life. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Desires are natural-and-necessary, natural-but-unnecessary, or neither natural nor necessary. | 29. Among desires some are natural (and necessary, some natural) but not necessary, and others neither natural nor necessary, but due to idle imagination. | We must consider that of desires some are natural, others vain, and of the natural some are necessary and others merely natural; and of the necessary some are necessary for happiness, others for the repose of the body, and others for very life. | In Both |
| Intense but unmet physical desires that cause no real pain stem from empty imagination, not nature. | 30. Wherever in the case of desires which are physical, but do not lead to a sense of pain, if they are not fulfilled, the effort is intense, such pleasures are due to idle imagination, and it is not owing to their own nature that they fail to be dispelled, but owing to the empty imaginings of the man. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Natural justice is a pledge of mutual advantage against harming or being harmed. | 31. The justice which arises from nature is a pledge of mutual advantage to restrain men from harming one another and save them from being harmed. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Creatures unable to make such compacts have no category of just or unjust. | 32. For all living things which have not been able to make compacts not to harm one another or be harmed, nothing ever is either just or unjust; and likewise too for all tribes of men which have been unable or unwilling to make compacts not to harm or be harmed. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Justice is not a thing in itself, only a compact against harm, wherever men deal with one another. | 33. Justice never is anything in itself, but in the dealings of men with one another in any place whatever and at any time it is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Injustice harms only through the fear of being caught. | 34. Injustice is not an evil in itself, but only in consequence of the fear which attaches to the apprehension of being unable to escape those appointed to punish such actions. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| No one who breaks the compact secretly can ever be certain of escaping detection. | 35. It is not possible for one who acts in secret contravention of the terms of the compact not to harm or be harmed, to be confident that he will escape detection, even if at present he escapes a thousand times. For up to the time of death it cannot be certain that he will indeed escape. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Justice is the same in its general nature for all, but its application varies by circumstance. | 36. In its general aspect justice is the same for all, for it is a kind of mutual advantage in the dealings of men with one another: but with reference to the individual peculiarities of a country or any other circumstances the same thing does not turn out to be just for all. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| A law is genuinely just only when it actually serves mutual advantage. | 37. Among actions which are sanctioned as just by law, that which is proved on examination to be of advantage in the requirements of men's dealings with one another, has the guarantee of justice, whether it is the same for all or not. But if a man makes a law and it does not turn out to lead to advantage in men's dealings with each other, then it no longer has the essential nature of justice. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| When circumstances change and advantage no longer holds, an action once just may cease to be just. | 38. Where, provided the circumstances have not been altered, actions which were considered just, have been shown not to accord with the general concept in actual practice, then they are not just. But where, when circumstances have changed, the same actions which were sanctioned as just no longer lead to advantage, there they were just at the time when they were of advantage for the dealings of fellow-citizens with one another, but subsequently they are no longer just, when no longer of advantage. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| The wise man makes what he can akin to himself, and expels from his life what he cannot reconcile. | 39. The man who has best ordered the element of disquiet arising from external circumstances has made those things that he could akin to himself and the rest at least not alien; but with all to which he could not do even this, he has refrained from mixing, and has expelled from his life all which it was of advantage to treat thus. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Those with full security from their neighbors live most pleasantly together, undisturbed even by a friend's death. | 40. As many as possess the power to procure complete immunity from their neighbours, these also live most pleasantly with one another, since they have the most certain pledge of security, and after they have enjoyed the fullest intimacy, they do not lament the previous departure of a dead friend, as though he were to be pitied. | — | Principal Doctrines only |
| Philosophy should be studied at every age -- it is never too early or too late. | — | Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul… Wherefore both when young and old a man must study philosophy, that as he grows old he may be young in blessings through the grateful recollection of what has been, and that in youth he may be old as well, since he will know no fear of what is to come. | Letter to Menoeceus only |
| The wise man neither longs for death nor fears it, against those who call life itself an evil; the same discipline teaches a person to live well and to die well. | — | But the many at one moment shun death as the greatest of evils, at another (yearn for it) as a respite from the (evils) in life. (But the wise man neither seeks to escape life) nor fears the cessation of life… And he who counsels the young man to live well, but the old man to make a good end, is foolish, not merely because of the desirability of life, but also because it is the same training which teaches to live well and to die well. Yet much worse still is the man who says it is good not to be born but ‘once born make haste to pass the gates of Death.’ For if he says this from conviction why does he not pass away out of life? | Letter to Menoeceus only |
| The future is neither wholly ours nor wholly beyond us. | — | We must then bear in mind that the future is neither ours, nor yet wholly not ours, so that we may not altogether expect it as sure to come, nor abandon hope of it, as if it will certainly not come. | Letter to Menoeceus only |
| Pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life -- the standard by which every good is judged. | — | And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good. | Letter to Menoeceus only |
| Simple living gives health to the full, fits us to be fearless of fortune, and makes luxury more enjoyable when it comes. | — | To grow accustomed therefore to simple and not luxurious diet gives us health to the full, and makes a man alert for the needful employments of life, and when after long intervals we approach luxuries disposes us better towards them, and fits us to be fearless of fortune. | Letter to Menoeceus only |
| Not luxury or the satisfaction of lusts, but sober reasoning that examines motives and banishes false opinion, produces the pleasant life. | — | For it is not continuous drinkings and revelings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit. | Letter to Menoeceus only |
| Events happen by necessity, by chance, or by what is within our control -- and praise and blame attach only to the last. | — | (He thinks that with us lies the chief power in determining events, some of which happen by necessity) and some by chance, and some are within our control; for while necessity cannot be called to account, he sees that chance is inconstant, but that which is in our control is subject to no master, and to it are naturally attached praise and blame. | Letter to Menoeceus only |
| Better to be enslaved to myths about the gods than to the hard determinism of the natural philosophers, since the gods can at least be placated. | — | For, indeed, it were better to follow the myths about the gods than to become a slave to the destiny of the natural philosophers: for the former suggests a hope of placating the gods by worship, whereas the latter involves a necessity which knows no placation. | Letter to Menoeceus only |
| Better to fail through reasoned action than to succeed through unreason. | — | He therefore thinks it better to be unfortunate in reasonable action than to prosper in unreason. For it is better in a man's actions that what is well chosen (should fail, rather than that what is ill chosen) should be successful owing to chance. | Letter to Menoeceus only |
| Meditating on these truths, with a like-minded companion, lets one live like a god among men. | — | Meditate therefore on these things and things akin to them night and day by yourself; and with a companion like to yourself, and never shall you be disturbed waking or asleep, but you shall live like a god among men. For a man who lives among immortal blessings is not like unto a mortal being. | Letter to Menoeceus only |
A note on borderline cases. A few rows marked “Principal Doctrines only” have a genuine but thin textual echo in the Letter that was judged too slight to count as a real match. Principal Doctrines 27 and 28, for instance, name friendship as the greatest instrument wisdom provides — the Letter’s closest approach is the passing phrase “with a companion like to yourself” in its closing lines (see the last row of the table), which is about a meditation-partner, not a developed doctrine of friendship, and so was not counted as covering the same topic. Where a judgment call like this could reasonably go the other way, the Doctrines text is the fuller and more explicit statement in any case.
A note on pleasure and tranquility. Pleasure (hēdonē) is the term the Principal Doctrines are organized around — it is named repeatedly and functions throughout as the explicit standard by which choice and avoidance are judged. “Happiness” in the strict sense (eudaimonia) does not appear in the Doctrines at all; where that idea is gestured at, the text uses “blessed” or “blessedness” instead (PD 1, PD 27). Tranquility is a more particular case: the abstract noun for it is not a headline term the way pleasure is, but a cognate of it is the organizing term of an entire doctrine — PD 17, “The just man is most free from trouble, the unjust most full of trouble” — so it is not accurate to say the idea never appears as a central term in the Doctrines. What is accurate is a claim about rank: pleasure is named as the criterion in over a dozen doctrines, undisturbedness in this technical sense appears explicitly only once, and even there it describes a consequence of justice rather than a good ranked above pleasure. Tranquility is never the measuring stick in the Principal Doctrines; pleasure remains that throughout.
Source: Cyril Bailey’s 1926 translation of the Principal Doctrines and the Letter to Menoeceus, as presented in Epicurus — The Extant Remains (paragraphs 122-135 for the Letter, 139-154 for the Doctrines). Text quoted verbatim; bracketed words mark places where Bailey’s own text supplies material missing from the manuscript.