Laudator Temporis Acti

Epicurus, fragment 476 Usener (tr. Cyril Bailey):

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all riches.

Πλουσιώτατον αὐτάρκεια πάντων.

Hermann Usener, Epicurea (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1887), p. 303, cites the following sources:

Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 6.2 (tr. William Winston):

Further, Euripides [Phoenissae 554] having written: "For to the temperate enough sufficient is" — Epicurus expressly says, "Sufficiency is the greatest riches of all."

ἀλλ´ Εὐριπίδου γράφοντος 'ἐπεὶ τά γ' ἀρκοῦντα ἱκανὰ τοῖς γε σώφροσιν' Ἐπίκουρος ἄντικρύς φησι Πλουσιώτατον αὐτάρκεια πάντων.

Porphyry, Letter to Marcella 28 (tr. Alice Zimmern):

Wherefore philosophers say that nothing is so necessary as to know thoroughly what is unnecessary, and moreover that to be self-sufficing is the greatest of all wealth, and that it is honourable not to ask anything of any man.

διό φασιν οἱ φιλόσοφοι οὐδὲν οὕτως ἀναγκαῖον ὡς τὸ γινώσκειν καcῶς τὸ μὴ ἀναγκαῖον, πλουσιωτάτην δὲ εἶναι πάντων τὴν αὐτάρκειαν καὶ σεμνὸν τὸ μηδενὸς δεῖσθαι λαμβάνονται.

Augustine, On the Utility of Belief 4.10 (tr. C.L. Cornish):

An instance suited to the third kind is, if one, after having read in the books of Epicurus some place wherein he praises continence, were to assert that he had made the chief good to consist in virtue, and that therefore he is not to be blamed.

Tertio generi est illud accommodatum: si quis Epicurum, lecto eius in libris aliquo loco ubi continentiam laudat, in virtute illum summum bonum posuisse asseveret, et ideo non esse culpandum.

Related posts:

• Self-Sufficiency
  
• Autarky