These past comforts ought to be treasured up by memory and reflection, so that they might become as it were matter for rumination, and might serve, in trying moments, even to counterbalance extreme physical suffering.

The health of Epicurus himself was very bad during the closing years of his life.

There remains a fragment of his last letter, to an intimate friend and companion, Idomeneus--'I write this to you on the last day of my life, which, in spite of the severest internal bodily pains, is still a happy day, because I set against them in the balance all the mental pleasure felt in the recollection of my past conversations with you.

Take care of the children left by Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of your demeanour from boyhood towards me and towards philosophy.' Bodily pain might thus be alleviated, when it occurred; it might be greatly lessened in occurrence, by prudent and moderate habits; lastly, even at the worst, if violent, it never lasted long; if not violent, it might be patiently borne, and was at any rate terminated, or terminable at pleasure, by death.
In the view of Epicurus, the chief miseries of life arose, not from bodily pains, but partly from delusions of hope, and exaggerated aspirations for wealth, honours, power, &c., in all which the objects appeared most seductive from a distance, inciting man to lawless violence and treachery, while in the reality they were always disappointments, and generally something worse; partly, and still more, from the delusions of fear.

Of this last sort, were the two greatest torments of human existence--fear of Death, and of eternal suffering after death, as announced by prophets and poets, and Fear of the Gods.
Epicurus, who did not believe in the continued existence of the soul separate from the body, declared that there could never be any rational ground for fearing death, since it was simply a permanent extinction of consciousness.[13] Death was nothing to us (he said); when death comes, we are no more, either to suffer or to enjoy.