The foolβs life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.
EpicurusRead
As if they were our own handiwork we place a high value on our characters.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We tend to cherish and take pride in our character, viewing it as a product of our own efforts.
This quote by Epicurus emphasizes the importance of character in our lives. It suggests that we hold our character in high regard, treating it as if it were a creation of our own deliberate actions and choices. By valuing our character, we acknowledge the role that our decisions play in shaping who we are, reflecting a deeper philosophical understanding of personal responsibility and integrity.
Themes
CharacterValueHandiworkPhilosophyIntegrity
In practice
Example use cases
During a leadership seminar, I shared this quote to emphasize the importance of integrity in leadership.
More from Epicurus
All quotes βAccustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live.
EpicurusRead
The wise man who has become accustomed to necessities knows better how to share with others than how to take from them, so great a treasure of self-sufficiency has he found.
EpicurusRead
We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.
EpicurusRead
I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)
EpicurusRead
Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
EpicurusRead
Similar quotes
My deep religiosity [...] found an abrupt ending at the age of twelve, through the reading of popular scientific books.
Albert EinsteinRead
Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
Who is the most favored of God? He from whom the greatest good comes to His creatures.
MuhammadRead
Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable - which, I haste to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live.
Marilynne RobinsonRead
The pyramids, attached with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.
R. Buckminster FullerRead
Fifty years after half a million gypsies were exterminated in the Second World War - thousands of them in Auschwitz - we're again preparing the mass killing of this minority.
Antonio TabucchiRead