Lucretius - De rerum natura (56 BC)

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

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

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

Lucretius
Never trust her at any time, when the calm sea shows her false alluring smile.

Lucretius
Thus the sum of things is ever being renewed, and mortals live 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.

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

Lucretius
By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death.

Lucretius
For as with children, when the doctors try
To give them loathsome wormwood, first they smear
Sweet yellow honey on the goblet's rim.

Lucretius
And many kinds of creatures must have died,
Unable to plant out new sprouts of life.
For whatever you see that lives and breathes and thrives
Has been, from the very beginning, guarded, saved
By it's trickery for its swiftness or brute strength.
And many have been entrusted to our care,
Commended by their usefulness to us.
For instance, strength supports a savage lion;
Foxes rely on their cunning; deer their flight.

Lucretius
So far as it goes, a small thing may give analogy of great things, and show the tracks of knowledge.

Lucretius
All things must needs be borne on through the calm void, moving at equal rate with unequal weights.

Lucretius
Men are eager to tread underfoot what they have once too much feared.

Lucretius
The vivid force of his mind prevailed, and he fared forth far beyond the flaming ramparts of the heavens and traversed the boundless universe in thought and mind.

Lucretius
For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers.

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

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

Lucretius
When the whole earth rocks under their feet and towns tumble with the shock or doubtfully threaten to fall, what wonder that mortal men abase themselves and make over to the gods in things here on earth high prerogatives and marvelous powers, sufficient to govern all things?

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

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

Lucretius
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.

Lucretius
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.

Lucretius
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.

Lucretius
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.

Lucretius
Lack of power to solve the question troubles the mind with doubts, whether there was ever a birth-time of the world, and whether likewise there is to be any end...

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

Lucretius
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.

Lucretius
That which was in esteem, falls at length into utter disrepute; and then another thing mounts up and issues out of its degraded state and every day is more and more coveted and blossoms forth high in honour when discovered and is in marvellous repute with men.

Lucretius
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.

Lucretius
Perhaps too the sun as he shines aloft with rosy lamp has roundabout him much fire with heats that are not visible, and thus the fire may be marked by no radiance, so that fraught with heat it increases to such a degree the stroke of the rays.

Lucretius
[The people] were given over in troops to disease and death.

Lucretius