By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death. Lucretius More Quotes by Lucretius More Quotes From Lucretius 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. Lucretius gratitude wind men 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. Lucretius heavy stones doe 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. Lucretius law dark children 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. Lucretius heaven believe hands Only religion can lead to such evil. Lucretius evil religion Life is one long struggle in the dark. Lucretius struggle dark life How wretched are the minds of men, and how blind their understandings. Lucretius understanding mind men The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not by violence but by oft falling. Lucretius stay-strong wisdom motivational Religious questions have often led to wicked and impious actions. Lucretius wicked religious action The first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye. Lucretius new-beginnings creativity eye 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 moon sky men 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 mind men order 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. Lucretius mind lying blood Whenever anything changes and quits its proper limits, this change is at once the death of that which was before. Lucretius things-change progress limits 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. Lucretius simple doubt believe Fear is the mother of all gods ... Nature does all things spontaneously, by herself, without the meddling of the gods. Lucretius atheism atheist mother (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. Lucretius air summer hands Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion. Lucretius wickedness literature men Tears for the mourners who are left behind Lucretius left-behind tears quiet For out of doubt Lucretius doubt giving men
