Q0106

“Nature's wealth has its bounds and is easy to procure; but the…” — Epicurus (Principal Doctrines XV)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Principal Doctrines XV. Theme: desire.

English

Nature's wealth has its bounds and is easy to procure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinite distance.
Thinker Epicurus
School Epicureanism
Source Principal Doctrines XV
Theme Desire
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Principal Doctrines XV and files it under Epicureanism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Epicurus

Epicurus (341–270 BCE) founded the Garden school in Athens, teaching atomist physics and a therapy of desire aimed at ataraxia. He admitted women and slaves as students and wrote extensively; most works are lost, leaving letters and maxims plus Lucretius’s later poem.

How to read this passage

Ethics and moral psychology analyze appetite, love, ambition, and addiction. Stoic, Buddhist, and psychoanalytic traditions treat desire as trainable rather than merely given. This passage enters that discussion through desire, nature.

Concepts in this quote

Desire
Desire drives action and suffering alike; philosophy asks which desires to educate, restrain, or affirm.
Nature
Philosophy quotes about nature ask what the cosmos is, how humans belong in it, and whether “natural” can guide ethics or politics.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Epicurus. (n.d.). Nature's wealth has its bounds and is easy to procure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinite distance. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0106

MLA: Epicurus. “Nature's wealth has its bounds and is easy….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0106.

Chicago: Epicurus. “Nature's wealth has its bounds and is easy….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0106.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “Nature's wealth has its bounds and is easy…”?

The passage is attributed to Epicurus, Principal Doctrines XV. The archive attributes this English wording to Principal Doctrines XV and files it under Epicureanism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Epicurus mean by desire?

Ethics and moral psychology analyze appetite, love, ambition, and addiction. Stoic, Buddhist, and psychoanalytic traditions treat desire as trainable rather than merely given. This passage enters that discussion through desire, nature.

Explore Epicurus on desire

Same thinker

More from Epicurus

  1. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  2. 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.
  3. Of all that wisdom provides for the happiness of a whole life, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship.
  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 desire

  1. It is not things that disturb people, but their judgments about things.
  2. Do not seek for things to happen as you wish, but wish for things to happen as they do, and you will flow well.
  3. Wealth does not take away need — it kindles new wants.
  4. Heaven moves with vigor; the gentleman accordingly strengthens himself without cease.
  5. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

Browse the desire theme