Death Does Not Concern Us Because

This argument appears in the Letter to Menoeceus, one of three surviving letters of Epicurus preserved by Diogenes Laertius. It is a formal proof — known as the "symmetry argument" — against the fear of death: death is the cessation of sensation, and where there is no sensation there can be no harm. Lucretius later extended the argument in De Rerum Natura, pointing out that we were not distressed by the infinite time before our birth, so we need not fear the infinite time after our death.