Yet it was the groundless fear of this nothing that poisoned all the tranquillity of life, and held men imprisoned even when existence was a torment.

Whoever had surmounted that fear was armed at once against cruel tyranny and against all the gravest misfortunes.

Next, the fear of the gods was not less delusive, and hardly less tormenting, than the fear of death.

It was a capital error (Epicurus declared) to suppose that the gods employed themselves as agents in working or superintending the march of the Cosmos; or in conferring favour on some men, and administering chastisement to others.

The vulgar religious tales, which represented them in this character, were untrue and insulting as regards the gods themselves, and pregnant with perversion and misery as regards the hopes and fears of mankind.