Principal Doctrines
Forty compact teachings on pleasure, fear, justice, friendship, desire, and security.
Read at the Internet Classics ArchivePrimary texts and pathways
The Garden library
A responsible starting shelf for studying Epicurus and the later Epicurean tradition.
Letter to Menoeceus
The clearest surviving introduction to Epicurean ethics, including death, desire, pleasure, and prudence.
Read at the Internet Classics ArchiveLetter to Herodotus
A condensed account of Epicurean physics: bodies, void, perception, cosmology, and natural explanation.
Read at the Internet Classics ArchiveLetter to Pythocles
Natural explanations of celestial and meteorological phenomena, with an emphasis on avoiding mythic fear.
Read at the Internet Classics ArchiveVatican Sayings
A later-discovered collection of short Epicurean maxims, many focused on friendship, gratitude, and desire.
Read at WikisourceLucretius, On the Nature of Things
A Roman Epicurean poem explaining nature, mortality, sensation, cosmology, and liberation from fear.
Read at Project GutenbergSuggested reading order
From seed to full garden
It gives the central ethical argument in a compact form. Read once for the overall shape, then again while marking every claim about desire, fear, pleasure, and prudence.
Group them by theme rather than treating them as isolated quotations: gods and death, pleasure and pain, desire, justice, friendship, and confidence.
Remember that ancient scientific details and the philosophical method are different questions. The enduring method is to prefer natural explanation and calibrate confidence to evidence.
Translations and interpretations differ. Compare multiple scholarly sources, especially on pleasure, theology, friendship, and the relation between kinetic and stable pleasures.
Translation note: Ancient texts reach us through different manuscripts and translations. Treat isolated internet quotations cautiously, especially when no translator or source is named.