Quotes from Lucretius

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

...Thus it comes That earth, without her seasons of fixed rains, Could bear no produce such as makes us glad, And whatsoever lives, if shut from food, Prolongs its kind and guards its life no more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

No single thing abides; but all things flow. Fragment to fragment clings - the things thus grow Until we know them and name them. By degrees They melt, and are no more the things we know.

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

So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.

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

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

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.

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

For there is a VOID in things; a truth which it will be useful for you, in reference to many points, to know; and which will prevent you from wandering in doubt.

When bodies spring apart, because the air Somehow condenses, wander they from truth: For then a void is formed, where none before; And, too, a void is filled which was before.

Lucretius, who follows [Epicurus] in denouncing love, sees no harm in sexual intercourse provided it is divorced from passion.

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

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

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 you are free of them yourself is pleasant.

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?

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

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