Epicurus

Why Epicurean ideas suit the challenges
of modern secular life

Temma Ehrenfeld

is a freelance journalist who covers psychology, health and personal finance. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, the LA Review of Books and The Wall Street Journal, among others. She lives in New York.

1,100 words

Edited by Pam Weintraub

A messy life. Detail from The Netherlandish Proverbs (1559) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Image courtesy Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

‘The pursuit of Happiness’ is a famous phrase in a famous document, the United States Declaration of Independence (1776). But few know that its author was inspired by an ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus. Thomas Jefferson considered himself an Epicurean. He probably found the phrase in John Locke, who, like Thomas Hobbes, David Hume and Adam Smith, had also been influenced by Epicurus.

Nowadays, educated English-speaking urbanites might call you an epicure if you complain to a waiter about over-salted soup, and stoical if you don’t. In the popular mind, an epicure fine-tunes pleasure, consuming beautifully, while a stoic lives a life of virtue, pleasure sublimated for good. But this doesn’t do justice to Epicurus, who came closest of all the ancient philosophers to understanding the challenges of modern secular life.