Author: Cassius Amicus
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New Audio “Reconstructed” Version of the Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda
Today I am posting an audio “reconstructed” version of the Epicurean Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda. The presentation has been prepared based on the translation of Martin Ferguson Smith,...
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**New Audio Version** Cicero’s “Defense of Epicurus” from “On Ends”
Of all the ancient Epicurean texts, this is the one I have always found the most clear and compelling to listen to. And of course ironies of ironies, this is...
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Frances Wright On The Proper Epicurean Attitude Toward Those With Whom We Disagree
This weekend in reviewing a number of different items in a number of contexts, I had reason to revisit a section of “A Few Days In Athens” that concerns something...
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Stoic vs. Epicurean: The Confrontation Between Zeno And Epicurus in Frances Wright’s “A Few Days In Athens”
Many fans of Epicurus have only a passing understanding of the inherent and irreconcilable conflict between Epicureanism and Stoicism. An excellent presentation of those differences can be found in Chapter...
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“Tell me not, Zeno, that the teacher is vicious who washes depravity from the youthful heart; who lays the storm of its passions, and turns all its sensibilities to good.”
The following words never were spoken by Epicurus, but they entered world literature in 1822, over the name of Frances Wright, and they clearly come from the pen of someone...
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Peace and Safety For Your Twentieth of July: “[T]he ideas of the Deity in the minds of vulgar worshipers in general are, and ever will be, false, erroneous, and idolatrous….”
Peace and Safety to the Epicureans of today, no matter where you might be! Here are three parallel observations on the nature of religion: First believe that God is a...
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New Audio Presentation of The Letter to Herodotus
[Latest Updated Version in MP3 here.] [Vimeo Edition] Of all the original texts that are available from the ancient world, Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus preserved by Diogenes Laertius is our...
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Pride, Vanity, Ambition … and Cynicism
The following is a fictional dialogue from Frances Wright’s “A Few Days In Athens,” Chapter IV. In this sequence, Gryphus the Cynic had just confronted Epicurus to demand that Epicurus...
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“That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical …. hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time.”
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1777, by Thomas Jefferson: An Act for establishing religious Freedom. Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; That all attempts to influence it...
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