Lucretius Quotes - Page 6

The sum of all sums is eternity.

Falling drops will at last wear away stone.

All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists Of twain of things: of bodies and of void In which they're set, and where they're moved around.

So much wrong could religion induce.

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.

Victory puts us on a level with heaven.

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.

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.

Some species increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and, like runners, pass on the torch of life.

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.

Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift.

Such evil deeds could religion prompt.

... we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true.

If men saw that a term was set to their troubles, they would find strength in some way to withstand the hocus-pocus and intimidations of the prophets.

It is a pleasure for to sit at ease Upon the land, and safely for to see How other folks are tossed on the seas That with the blustering winds turmoiled be.

For out of doubt In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs Incipient motions are diffused.

Gently touching with the charm of poetry.

Men conceal the past scenes of their lives.

Many animals even now spring out of the soil, Coalescing from the rains and the heat of the sun. Small wonder, then, if more and bigger creatures, Full-formed, arose from the new young earth and sky. The breed, for instance, of the dappled birds Shucked off their eggshells in the springtime, as Crickets in summer will slip their slight cocoons All by themselves, and search for food and life. Earth gave you, then, the first of mortal kinds, For all the fields were soaked with warmth and moisture.

In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers.

When the body is assailed by the strong force of time and the limbs weaken from exhausted force, genius breaks down, and mind and speech fail. [Lat., Ubi jam valideis quassatum est viribus aevi Corpus, et obtuseis ceciderunt viribus artus, Claudicat ingenium delirat linguaque mensque.]

You may complete as many generations as you please during your life; none the less will that everlasting death await you.

The fall of dropping water wears away the Stone.

Pleasant it to behold great encounters of warfare arrayed over the plains, with no part of yours in peril.

The highest summits and those elevated above the level of other things are mostly blasted by envy as by a thunderbolt.