Lucretius quotes

(On the temperature of water in wells) The reason why the water in wells becomes colder in summer is that the earth is then rarefied by the heat, and releases into the air all the heat-particles it happens to have. So, the more the earth is drained of heat, the colder becomes the moisture that is concealed in the ground. On the other hand, when all the earth condenses and contracts and congeals with the cold, then, of course, as it contracts, it squeezes out into the wells whatever heat it holds.

...if one thing frightens people, it is that so much happens, on earth and out in space, the reasons for which seem somehow to escape them, and they fill in the gap by putting it down to the gods.

Fear in sooth holds so in check all mortals, becasue thay see many operations go on in earth and heaven, the causes of which they can in no way understand, believing them therefore to be done by power divine. for these reasons when we shall have seen that nothing can be produced from nothing, we shall then more correctly ascertain that which we are seeking, both the elements out of which every thing can be produced and the manner in which every thing can be produced in which all things are done without the hands of the gods.

Nature impelled men to make sounds with their tongues And they found it useful to give names to things Much for the same reason that we see children now Have recourse to gestures because they cannot speak And point their fingers at things which appear before them.

It is doubtful what fortune to-morrow will bring. [Lat., Posteraque in dubio est fortunam quam vehat aetas.]

So much wrong could religion induce.

Why shed tears that you must die? For if your past life has been one of enjoyment, and if all your pleasures have not passed through your mind, as through a sieve, and vanished, leaving not a rack behind, why then do you not, like a thankful guest, rise cheerfully from life's feast, and with a quiet mind go take your rest.

How wretched are the minds of men, and how blind their understandings. [Lat., O miseras hominum menteis! oh, pectora caeca!]

Constant dripping hollows out a stone.

What came from the earth returns back to the earth, and the spirit that was sent from heaven, again carried back, is received into the temple of heaven.

There can be no centre in infinity.

Fear is the mother of all gods.

Even if I knew nothing of the atoms, I would venture to assert on the evidence of the celestial phenomena themselves, supported by many other arguments, that the universe was certainly not created for us by divine power: it is so full of imperfections.

If God can do anything he can make a stone so heavy that even he can't lift it. Then there is something God cannot do, he cannot lift the stone. Therefore God does not exist.

For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things that children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true. This terror, therefore, and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of daylight, but by the aspect and law of nature.

These [the senses] we trust, first, last, and always.

And life is given to none freehold, but it is leasehold for all.

The body searches for that which has injured the mind with love.

Anything made out of destructible matter Infinite time would have devoured before. But if the atoms that make and replenish the world Have endured through the immense span of the past Their natures are immortal-that is clear. Never can things revert to nothingness!

The dreadful fear of hell is to be driven out, which disturbs the life of man and renders it miserable, overcasting all things with the blackness of darkness, and leaving no pure, unalloyed pleasure.

There is no place in nature for extinction.

All things obey fixed laws.

Thus the sum Forever is replenished, and we live As mortals by eternal give and take. The nations wax, the nations wane away; In a brief space the generations pass, And like to runners hand the lamp of life One unto other.

Nothing comes from nothing.

What once sprung from the earth sinks back into the earth.

We, peopling the void air, make gods to whom we impute the ills we ought to bear.

Out beyond our world there are, elsewhere, other assemblages of matter making other worlds. Ours is not the only one in air's embrace.

Nay, the greatest wits and poets, too, cease to live; Homer, their prince, sleeps now in the same forgotten sleep as do the others. [Lat., Adde repertores doctrinarum atque leporum; Adde Heliconiadum comites; quorum unus Homerus Sceptra potitus, eadem aliis sopitu quiete est.]

Such crimes has superstition caused.

Life is one long struggle in the dark.

Air, I should explain, becomes wind when it is agitated.

From the heart of the fountain of delight rises a jet of bitterness that tortures us among the very flowers.

All things around, convulsed with violent thunder, seem to tremble, and the mighty walls of the capacious world appear at once to have started and burst asunder.

Meantime, when once we know from nothing still Nothing can be create, we shall divine More clearly what we seek: those elements From which alone all things created are, And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.

The wailing of the newborn infant is mingled with the dirge for the dead.

What can give us more sure knowledge than our senses? How else can we distinguish between the true and the false?

Continual dropping wears away a stone.

Poor humanity, to saddle the gods with such a responsibility and throw in a vindictive temper. What griefs they hatch for themselves, what festering sores for us, what tears for our prosperity! This is not piety, this oft-repeated show of bowing a veiled head before a graven image; this bustling to every altar; this kow-towing and prostration on the ground with palms outspread before the shrines of the gods; this deluging of vow on vow. True piety lies rather in the power to contemplate the universe with a quiet mind.

At this stage you must admit that whatever is seen to be sentient is nevertheless composed of atoms that are insentient. The phenomena open to our observation so not contradict this conclusion or conflict with it. Rather they lead us by the hand and compel us to believe that the animate is born, as I maintain, of the insentient.

Our life must once have end; in vain we fly From following Fate; e'en now, e'en now, we die.

The sum total of all sums total is eternal.

Certainly it was no design of the atoms to place themselves in a particular order, nor did they decide what motions each should have. But atoms were struck with blows in many ways and carried along by their own weight from infinite times up to the present. They have been accustomed to move and to meet in all manner of ways. For this reason, it came to pass that being spread abroad through a vast time and trying every sort of combination and motion, at length those come together that produce great things, like earth and sea and sky and the generation of living creatures.

There is nothing that exists so great or marvelous that over time mankind does not admire it less and less.

Tis pleasant to stand on shore and watch others labouring in a stormy sea.

It was certainly not by design that the particles fell into order, they did not work out what they were going to do, but because many of them by many chances struck one another in the course of infinite time and encountered every possible form and movement, that they found at last the disposition they have, and that is how the universe was created.

Violence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things, and generally return upon him who began.

It is great wealth to a soul to live frugally with a contented mind.

No matter how difficult a task may look.. Persistence and steady action will get you through

Fear is the mother of all gods ... Nature does all things spontaneously, by herself, without the meddling of the gods.

Never trust the calm sea when she shows her false alluring smile.

First, then, I say, that the mind, which we often call the intellect, in which is placed the conduct and government of life, is not less an integral part of man himself, than the hand, and foot, and eyes, are portions of the whole animal.

The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.

But if anyone were to conduct his life by reason He would find great riches in living a peaceful life And being contented; one is never short of a little But men want always to be powerful and famous So that their fortune rests on a solid foundation And they can spend a placid life in opulence. There isn't a hope of it; to attain great honours You have to struggle along a dangerous way And even when you reach the top there is envy Which can strike you down like lightning into Tartarus. For envy, like lightning, generally strikes at the top Or any point which sticks out from the ordinary level.

The nature of the universe has by no means been made through divine power, seeing how great are the faults that mar it.

And since the mind is of a man one part, Which in one fixed place remains, like ears, And eyes, and every sense which pilots life; And just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart, Severed from us, can neither feel nor be, But in the least of time is left to rot, Thus mind alone can never be, without The body and the man himself, which seems, As 'twere the vessel of the same- or aught Whate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined: Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds.

We notice that the mind grows with the body, and with it decays.

From the heart of this fountain of delights wells up some bitter taste to choke them even amid the flowers.

Do we not see all humans unaware Of what they want, and always searching everywhere, And changing place, as if to drop the load they bear?

Were a man to order his life by the rules of true reason, a frugal substance joined to a contented mind is for him great riches; for never is there any lack of a little.

If the matter of death is reduced to sleep and rest, what can there be so bitter in it, that any one should pine in eternal grief for the decease of a friend?

So, little by little, time brings out each several thing into view, and reason raises it up into the shores of light.

Fear was the first thing on Earth to create gods.

Truths kindle light for truths.

We plainly perceive that the mind strengthens and decays with the body.

To none is life given in freehold; to all on lease.

Why dost thou not retire like a guest sated with the banquet of life, and with calm mind embrace, thou fool, a rest that knows no care?

Now come: that thou mayst able be to know That minds and the light souls of all that live Have mortal birth and death, I will go on Verses to build meet for thy rule of life, Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil.

Beauty and strength were, both of them, much esteemed; Then wealth was discovered and soon after gold Which quickly became more honoured than strength or beauty. For men, however strong or beautiful, Generally follow the train of a richer man.

The old must always make way for the new, and one thing must be built out of the ruins of another. There is no murky pit of hell awaiting anyone.

Not they who reject the gods are profane, but those who accept them.

The sum total of all sums total is eternal (meaning the universe). [Lat., Summarum summa est aeternum.]

Those vestiges of natures left behind Which reason cannot quite expel from us Are still so slight that naught prevents a man From living a life even worthy of the gods.

For fools admire and love those things they see hidden in verses turned all upside down, and take for truth what sweetly strokes the ears and comes with sound of phrases fine imbued.

Nothing can be created out of nothing.

What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others

The first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.

Thus the sum of things is ever being reviewed, and mortals dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and like runners pass on the torch of life.

The greatest wealth is to live content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied.

Too often in time past, religion has brought forth criminal and shameful actions... How many evils has religion caused?

Tears for the mourners who are left behind Peace everlasting for the quiet dead.

If atom stocks are inexhaustible, Greater than power of living things to count, If Nature's same creative power were present too To throw the atoms into unions - exactly as united now, Why then confess you must That other worlds exist in other regions of the sky, And different tribes of men, kinds of wild beasts.

Nature obliges everything to change about. One thing crumbles and falls in the weakness of age; Another grows in its place from a negligible start. So time alters the whole nature of the world And earth passes from one state to another.

Time changes the nature of the whole world; Everything passes from one state to another And nothing stays like itself.

It's easier to avoid the snares of love than to escape once you are in that net whose cords and knots are strong; but even so, enmeshed, entangled, you can still get out unless, poor fool, you stand in your own way.

Human life lay foul before men's eyes, crushed to the dust beneath religion's weight.

Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion.

The sum of all sums is eternity.

Since you must admit that there is nothing outside the universe, it can have no limit and is accordingly without end or measure. It makes no odds in which part of it you may take your stand; whatever spot anyone may occupy, the universe stretches away from him just the same in all directions without limit.

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

All things keep on in everlasting motion, Out of the infinite come the particles, Speeding above, below, in endless dance.

Only religion can lead to such evil.

Look at a man in the midst of doubt & danger and you will learn in his hour of adversity what he really is.

A falling drop at last will carve a stone.

Whenever anything changes and quits its proper limits, this change is at once the death of that which was before.

For it is unknown what is the real nature of the soul, whether it be born with the bodily frame or be infused at the moment of birth, whether it perishes along with us, when death separates the soul and body, or whether it visits the shades of Pluto and bottomless pits, or enters by divine appointment into other animals.

O goddess, bestow on my words an immortal charm.

One thing is made of another, and nature allows no new creation except at the price of death.

Forbear to spew out reason from your mind, but rather ponder everything with keen judgment; and if it seems true, own yourself vanquished, but, if it is false, gird up your loins to fight.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from.

For piety lies not in being often seen turning a veiled head to stones, nor in approaching every altar, nor in lying prostratebefore the temples of the gods, nor in sprinkling altars with the blood of beastsbut rather in being able to look upon all things with a mind at peace.

No fact is so simple that it is not harder to believe than to doubt at the first presentation. Equally, there is nothing so mighty or so marvelous that the wonder it evokes does not tend to diminish in time.

The mind like a sick body can be healed and changed by medicine.

Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation: not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive from what ills you are free yourself is pleasant.

Long time men lay oppress'd with slavish fear Religion's tyranny did domineer ... At length a mighty one of Greece began To assert the natural liberty of man, By senseless terrors and vain fancies let To slavery. Straight the conquered phantoms fled.

You alone govern the nature of things. Without you nothing emerges into the light of day, without you nothing is joyous or lovely.

It's easier to avoid the snares of love than to escape once you are in that net.

One Man's food is another Man's Poison

[N]ature repairs one thing from another and allows nothing to be born without the aid of another's death.

There is so much wrong with the world. (tanta stat praedita culpa)

Though the dungeon, the scourge, and the executioner be absent, the guilty mind can apply the goad and scorch with blows.

All life is a struggle in the dark.

Religious questions have often led to wicked and impious actions.

Epicurus ... whose genius surpassed all humankind, extinguished the light of others, as the stars are dimmed by the rising sun.

True piety lies rather in the power to contemplate the universe with a quiet mind.

Violence and wrong enclose all who commit them in their meshes and do mostly recoil on him from whom they begin.

How many evils have flowed from religion.

But centaurs never existed; there could never be So to speak a double nature in a single body Or a double body composed of incongruous parts With a consequent disparity in the faculties. The stupidest person ought to be convinced of that.

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.

Assuredly whatsoever things are fabled to exist in deep Acheron, these all exist in this life. There is no wretched Tantalus, fearing the great rock that hangs over him in the air and frozen with vain terror. Rather, it is in this life that fear of the gods oppresses mortals without cause, and the rock they fear is any that chance may bring.

Victory puts us on a level with heaven.

The mask is torn off, while the reality remains

The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not by violence but by oft falling.

Death is nothing to us, it matters not one jot, since the nature of the mind is understood to be mortal.

Rest, brother, rest. Have you done ill or well Rest, rest, There is no God, no gods who dwell Crowned with avenging righteousness on high Nor frowning ministers of their hate in hell.

Mother of Aeneas, pleasure of men and gods. -Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas