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From, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. I, The early Presocratics and the Pythagoreans, Cambridge University Press, 1962, pp. 1-25.
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Page 23
Unlike Democritus, who almost certainly posited an initial random motion of the atoms in all directions, Epicurus supposed the unimpeded motion of the atoms to be uniform in direction and speed, caused by their weight. Since he had the remarkable perspicacity to anticipate the finding of modern science that in a vacuum all bodies will fall at an equal speed, irrespective of their relative weights, he had still to account for their collision and entanglement. This he did by assuming a power in the atoms to make a tiny swerve from their course at a time and place undetermined, and this apparently unexplained hypothesis became a key-point of his system. In conjunction with his theory of the material, atomic composition of the mind, he used it to account for free-will, for, while taking over the atomic system, he was resolved at all costs to avoid the determinism of his predecessor. To suppose oneself a slave to destiny, he said, was worse than believing the old myths about the gods.
The highest good in life he named 'pleasure', but it would be more correctly described as absence of pain. The line of conduct which he recommended was the reverse of a voluptuary's, since indulgence in rich food and drink and other sensual pleasures is by no means calculated to produce that 'freedom from pain in the body and trouble in the mind' in which alone lies the pleasure of the wise man. Moreover 'it is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently and honourably and justly'. (Cicero said with some reason that Epicurus only succeeded in maintaining that pleasure was the summum bonum by giving the word a meaning which no one else would recognize.) Though blameless, the Epicurean ethic was somewhat negative, not to say egoistic, since the attainment of the quiet mind, which was its aim, called for abstention from all public duties and responsibilities. The ideal was 'to live unnoticed'.
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/guthrie-history-intro.asp?pg=23
