Q0019

Epicurus

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
Thinker Epicurus
School Epicureanism
Source Letter to Menoeceus
Theme Death
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Letter to Menoeceus, within the tradition of Epicureanism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of death, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Epicurus's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Epicurus. (n.d.). Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0019

MLA: Epicurus. “Death is nothing to us: for what has….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0019.

Chicago: Epicurus. “Death is nothing to us: for what has….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0019.

Same thinker

More from Epicurus

  1. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.
  2. Of all that wisdom provides for the happiness of a whole life, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship.
  3. Nature's wealth has its bounds and is easy to procure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinite distance.
  4. It is impossible to live pleasantly without living wisely, finely, and justly.
  5. The cry of the flesh is not to be hungry, not to be thirsty, not to be cold.

All quotations by Epicurus

Same theme

More on death

  1. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
  2. Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
  3. Therefore death is nothing to us, and does not concern us at all.
  4. To philosophize is to learn how to die.
  5. Depart then in peace; the one who releases you is also at peace.

Browse the death theme