Epicurean Brochure

Quote from AxA

I like this attitude of fearless playfulness. Seems to be something about the Epicurean perspective that brings out this feeling.

Yes. I think it's very important. It's like Lucretius is warning about, we're up against a veritable army of nay-sayers and manipulators, and you need an upbeat and even devil-may-care attitude to stand up to what's coming up against you.

And two paraphrase of one of many relevant quotes would be that there can be nothing terrible in living for the person who knows that there is nothing terrible in not living -- and that you can be confident due to what's wrapped up in the allusion that it is always possible to "leave the theatre when the play ceases to please us" -- of course most of us are lucky today that the play generally doesn't get that bad.

Quote from Cassius

we're up against a veritable army of nay-sayers and manipulators,

Or to say it another way...some people feel very attached to ideas about God and the supernatural, and may feel upset by ideas which are nearly similar to atheism (except for very small differences). And we see Epicurus taught in his private garden rather than in public spaces. Thus there is the debate on "live unknown". We've got a thread discussing various interpretations on that here.