Q0106

Epicurus

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

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 context

This English passage is associated with Principal Doctrines XV, 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 desire, 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.). 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.

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