I am working on the concept of 'doubles' in literature. I would like to quote the following extract that was sent via the Wordsmith account. Does anyone know where the quote was taken from and what the best book is to look up?
Emy:
Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why
should I fear that which cannot exist when I do? -Epicurus, philosopher (c.
341-270 BCE)
Check out
http://
http://www.grtbooks.com/exitfram.asp?idx=3&sub=6&ref=epicurus&URL=http://www.epicurus.net/menoeceus.html
Translation is a little different. Their version says:
Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer.
k
Maybe we should start charging, or sending bills, to
google?
Thank you for the Epicurus suggestions! I'll certainly use them!
Emy