Q0382

Democritus

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Best for a human being is to live life with as much cheerfulness and as little distress as possible.
Thinker Democritus
School Atomism
Source DK 68B191 (and related)
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with DK 68B191 (and related), within the tradition of Atomism. 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 philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Democritus'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: Democritus. (n.d.). Best for a human being is to live life with as much cheerfulness and as little distress as possible. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0382

MLA: Democritus. “Best for a human being is to live….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0382.

Chicago: Democritus. “Best for a human being is to live….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0382.

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. 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.

Browse the philosophy theme