Human life, hideous to behold, lay on the earth, crushed under the weight of a religion which reared its head from the heavenly regions, towering over mortals, looking horrible, when for the first time a Greek, a mortal, dared to turn his eyes upon it, and the first to stand against it; neither what was said about the gods, nor the lightning, nor the sky and its menacing rumble stopped him (...). Therefore, the vigorous force of his spirit triumphed, and advanced far beyond the fiery walls of the world: he traversed the immense whole in thought and spirit, from where he returned as a victor to teach us what can be born, what cannot, for what reason finally attaches to everything a limited power and a profound limit. By his freedom of thought and tone, Epicurus (341-270 BC) scandalized with his alive, and for centuries. His opponents denounced his ignorance and his crudeness, when it came to him breaking with a cumulative mode of knowledge and exercising a critical eye on all cultural traditions. The simplicity of its philosophy, supported by a very rigorous approach, aims to give everyone the possibility of achieving happiness. It is this lesson of serenity, gained over the sufferings of the body and the troubles of the soul, that reading Epicurus still invites us to meditate today. The three complete letters and the two collections of sentences, which survive from his work and are brought together here in a new translation, give a precise and complete idea of ​​his philosophical approach. -- [www.payot.ch]