Book III
o Epicurus discovered and has shown to us immortal truths, which we should apply to our own lives as he did to his.
o Most importantly, the fear of hell must be shown to be groundless, as it pollutes life and makes happiness impossible.
o The fear of hell is dispelled by the study of nature.
o Mind is a part of man’s makeup just like hands, feet, and eyes.
o Mind and spirit are, like everything else, material in nature.
o Mind is made up of diminutive particles.
o Mind is made up of small particles but also of a fourth, unnamed element.
o This fourth element is lord of all, and rules body and mind.
o Reason can dispel our primitive elements and allow us to live lives worthy of the gods.
o This fourth element of spirit is inseparable from the body.
o Mind is more powerful than spirit.
o Mind and body are born and age together.
o Mind can be diseased just as the body can.
o The truth meets falsehood head-on and cuts off its retreat as well, so it is doubly victor.
o Mind perishes with the body.
o Even if spirit possesses an immortal quality, it keeps no memory of a prior life, so we are essentially new creations.
o The spirit, once infused throughout the body, dies with it.
o Spirits do not make bodies for themselves and crawl into them
o If spirit were immortal and kept its identify we would see beasts perform like scholars.
o It is comical to think that spirits might stand in lines holding tickets to enter the bodies of living things.
o Trees cannot root in the sky; there is an everlasting fixed assignment set for being and growth.
o It is nonsense to think that mortal and immortal can unite in an immortal pact.
o Death is nothing to us, and has no more relevance to us than did the time before we were born.
o Just as we have no concern about the eternity of time before our birth, we should have no concern about the eternity of time after our death.
o Even if the mind or spirit has sensation after death, that is nothing to us, as our essence derives from our union with out body, and any such existence has no meaning to us.
o If tough luck lies ahead for any man, he must be there to experience it, but since death removes our consciousness we have no need to fear it.
o Death is no worse than eternal sleep.
o Take leave of life as if you are leaving a banquet.
o Think of the eternity of time before our birth as a mirror of the eternity of time after death and you will realize that this is not grim, and is a rest more free from care than any sleep.
o The terrors that supposedly exist in Hell really exist here – in the minds of fools.
o Remember that the greatest men in the history of the world have also died, just as you will.
o Half their time men spend in sleep; the other half wandering around aimslessly, sleeping with their eyes wide open.
o Men seem to feel a burden on their souls, and they waste their lives away, not realizing that the issue for them to understand is not how they spend an hour, but how they will spend eternity.
o All men must die, and none can escape; you must reconcile yourself to this law of nature.
