Epicurus

"We should honor those friendships that have stood the test of time."

"The path to contentment is paved with realistic expectations."

"A good friend is worth more than all the gold in the world."

"The pursuit of endless pleasure is endless folly."

"In friendship lies the cure for loneliness and despair."

"The wise person knows which desires are worth pursuing."

"Do not make a god of your belly."

"The fear of the gods is the beginning of true freedom."

"Small gifts between friends are the sweetest treasures."

"Modesty and shame are the guardians of virtue."

"The contemplative life is the most rewarding life."

"Those who claim to need nothing are the richest of all."

"The ungrateful person is like a wave of the sea, each returning billow effaces the markings on the sand before."

"When we say pleasure is the goal of life, we mean not the pleasures of the debauched, but freedom from bodily pain and mental anguish."

"The beginning and the root of all good is the pleasure of the stomach; even wisdom and culture must be referred to this."

"One should not spoil what one has by desiring what one has not, but remember that what one has was once among the things one only hoped for."

"Natural wealth is limited and easy to procure; the wealth required by idle desires extends without limit."

"We should seek out the company of those who can make us better persons, and avoid those who will make us worse."

"It is better for you to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles in war."

"The noble soul stands in awe of itself, not of fortune's blows."

"When we say we ought to share the benefits of philosophy, we speak as if philosophy were a medicine for the soul."

"Prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy; from it spring all other virtues."

"Do not despise anyone, and do not be haughty to anyone, for life brings many turns."

"The wise man does not give the right answer, he poses the right question."

"Some desires are natural and necessary; some natural but unnecessary; and some neither natural nor necessary."

"A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs."

"The man who least needs tomorrow is the man most ready to face it."

"Poverty, if it remain within the bounds of what is needed, is not painful."

"The cry of the flesh: not to hunger, not to thirst, not to freeze. If someone has this and hopes to have it, he might rival Zeus himself in happiness."

"Being born is of little importance, but living well and nobly is."