Talk:Doctrine 40/@comment-3071102-20100918050906

The statement is about those who acheive prosperity, security, friendship, happiness and respect -- and then die suddenly. They are not to be mourned as they acheived the best that life had to offer. Here Epicurus makes his greatest summation of what is most important -- "those things closest to us" -- to use Nietzsche's phrase from The Wanderer and His Shadow, #5. Those things closest to us are: friendship, security, prosperity, intimacy, respect of others, and the knowledge that death is "nothing." Wes Costello