Stoicism vs Epicureanism: What's the Difference?

Start hereSeneca was a Stoic, yet in the Latin text Epicurus is named in at least 21 of his first 29 letters. Epictetus, another Stoic, has a discourse titled Against Epicurus, recorded on the usual account by his student Arrian. So were the two schools enemies, or close relatives?

Stoicism and Epicureanism were rival schools in ancient Athens, and both treated a calm mind as a crucial part of a flourishing life. They split over what that calm rests on.

For the Stoics, only virtue is good. For Epicurus, the goal was pleasure, which he defined as “the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul”.

This page sets the two side by side. It shows where they meet, where they part, and ends with a few ideas to try.

011. At a glance

	Stoicism	Epicureanism
Founder	Zeno of Citium, around 300 BCE	Epicurus, born in 341 BCE
Where they met	A painted porch in the agora at Athens	The Garden, a community and school in Athens
The goal	Life in agreement with nature, the same as a virtuous life	Pleasure: no pain in the body and no trouble in the soul
What is good	Only virtue	Pleasure; the virtues are tools for a happy life
Pleasure and pain	Neither good nor evil in themselves	Seek moderate pleasure, and especially avoid pain
The calm mind	Apatheia, freedom from passion	Ataraxia, tranquillity
The world	A god takes providential care of it	Atoms moving through empty space; the gods have no influence on our lives
Public life	The wise man takes part, if nothing hinders him	The wise man will not take part in politics
Death	Nothing terrible; the terror is in our view of it	Nothing to us, because we feel nothing

022. What Stoicism is

The Stoic school was founded around 300 BCE by Zeno of Citium. Its name comes from the Stoa Poikilê, a porch in the agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the first Stoics met and lectured.

Diogenes Laertius reports that Zeno was the first to name the goal of life as “life in agreement with nature”, the same as a virtuous life. Another ancient source, Stobaeus, credits the words “with nature” to Zeno’s successor Cleanthes.

For the Stoics, virtue is both necessary and enough for happiness.

In their view, life, health, pleasure and wealth, and their opposites such as death, disease and pain, are neither good nor evil. The Stoics called them indifferent. They saw a god at work in the world, taking providential care of it and everything in it.

The school’s Roman phase includes Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Our pages on Stoicism, Seneca’s letters, the Enchiridion and the Meditations go further.

033. What Epicureanism is

Epicurus was born in 341 BCE. Around 306 BCE he settled in Athens and founded the Garden, a philosophical community and school.

He made pleasure the goal of life, but not “the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality”. One of his Principal Doctrines says that pleasure reaches its limit when all pain is removed. The virtues mattered to him for the happiness they bring, not for their own sake.

In his account, the whole of being consists of bodies and space. The bodies are atoms, uncuttable bits of matter flying through empty space.

He did not deny the gods. He held that a blessed being has no trouble itself and brings no trouble to anyone else. Among the things wisdom provides for a happy life, he ranked friendship by far the most important.

Our page on what Epicurus taught looks at eight popular claims about him.

044. Where they overlap

• The two schools started in Athens at almost the same time, and their views are often compared and contrasted.
• Both saw something very similar as a crucial part of a flourishing life: apatheia for the Stoics, ataraxia for the Epicureans. The word ataraxia is linked with the Epicureans, but both schools used it. There are differences, especially in how each school taught people to get there.
• Both told people not to fear death. In the Enchiridion, which on the usual account his student Arrian put together, Epictetus says death is nothing terrible, or it would have seemed so to Socrates. Epicurus taught that death is nothing to us.

Two Roman Stoics quote Epicurus by name. Seneca took many sayings from him: in the Latin text, Epicurus is named in at least 21 of the first 29 letters. He says he crosses into the enemy’s camp “not as a deserter, but as a scout” (2.5, Gummere).

Marcus Aurelius borrows a remark of Epicurus about pain: that in most cases it is neither unbearable nor endless (7.64).

055. The differences that matter

What the good life rests on

One encyclopedia sums it up this way. The Stoics thought the pivotal thing in life is virtue and its cultivation. The Epicureans thought the point was to seek moderate pleasure and especially avoid pain.

Epictetus drew the line sharply in a discourse titled Against Epicurus (Discourses 1.23), as Arrian recorded it, on the usual account. Our reading: a Stoic tends to ask whether a choice is right, and an Epicurean whether it will leave them calm and free of pain.

How the world works

The Stoics took the apparent design in nature as evidence for the intelligence and benevolence of God. Epicurus tried to explain it as the result of natural processes, in a way one encyclopedia compares to natural selection.

Marcus Aurelius sometimes set the two pictures side by side: “either there is providence or atoms” (4.3, Long).

Public life

In Diogenes Laertius’s summary, the Stoic wise man will take part in politics if nothing hinders him, since that way he can restrain vice and promote virtue. Of the Epicurean wise man, the same writer says he will not take part in politics. The Stanford Encyclopedia sums up Epicurus’s advice on politics as: avoid it where possible.

Why death is not to be feared

The two schools reached a similar calm by different roads. Epicurus argued that good and evil need feeling, and death is the end of all feeling. The Stoics listed death with disease and pain among the things that are neither good nor evil.

066. Common mix-ups

“Epicurean means indulgent”

It is easy to see where this comes from: Epicurus did call pleasure the goal. But he praised a simple and inexpensive diet. Seneca, a Stoic, describes a welcome at the Garden of barley-meal and plenty of water.

“Stoic means unfeeling”

The Stoics did call the wise man passionless. But they also named three good emotional states: “joy, caution, and wishing”. The Stanford Encyclopedia says this “belies the caricature of the Sage as an unfeeling robot”.

“Stoics were against pleasure”

This one is partly right. The Stoics counted pleasure, like health and wealth, as neither good nor evil in itself. But they also listed pleasure among the four main passions, and defined it as “an irrational elation”. And the wise man, as above, is passionless.

Joy, in their list, is its good counterpart: a rational elation. Our reading: they were not against feeling good, only against an elation that runs ahead of reason.

077. How to use the difference

These are ideas to try, not rules. Take what fits.

• Ask both questions. Before a choice, try the Stoic question and the Epicurean one side by side. Our reading: one checks whether the choice is right, the other whether it will leave you calm.
• Sort your wants. Seneca passes on a saying of Epicurus: “If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich” (16.7, Gummere). Our reading: notice which wants are yours and which come from comparison.
• Borrow like Seneca. He wrote “Whatever is well said by anyone is mine” (16.7, Gummere). Copy one line a day from either school.
• Read them at the source. Start with the short texts in the list below.

088. Where to read them

• Epicurus in his own words. His Letter to Menoeceus, a short summary of his ethics, and his Principal Doctrines are preserved in Book X of Diogenes Laertius’s Lives. Free on Wikisource, in R. D. Hicks’s 1925 translation.
• An ancient summary of Stoic teaching. Diogenes Laertius gives his general account of Stoic doctrine in his life of Zeno, Book VII.
• Epictetus, Enchiridion. A brief abridgment of his Discourses, free on Project Gutenberg.
• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. Notes written, as most scholars now read them, for his own moral improvement. Free on Project Gutenberg.
• Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius. Free on Wikisource in Richard M. Gummere’s translation, published in three volumes from 1917 to 1925.
• The encyclopedia entries. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy both have free entries on Stoicism and on Epicurus, listed below.

09Quick answers

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How we checked this · Last checked October 2026

• We read Epicurus's letters and Principal Doctrines, and Diogenes Laertius's summary of Stoic teaching, in R. D. Hicks's 1925 translation.
• Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are quoted from the Higginson and Long translations on Project Gutenberg. Seneca is quoted from Gummere's translation, in short lines only.
• We counted the letters that name Epicurus in Seneca's Latin text, and give the same figure as our Letters from a Stoic page, at least 21 of the first 29.
• The two encyclopedias give slightly different years for Epicurus's move to Athens, so we say around 306 BCE.
• Our wording on Epicurus, Stoic feelings and Seneca matches our pages on Epicurus, the Meditations and Letters from a Stoic.

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