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.
LUCRETIUSA falling drop at last will carve a stone.
More Lucretius Quotes
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Too often in time past, religion has brought forth criminal and shameful actions… How many evils has religion caused?
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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.
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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.
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How is it that the sky feeds the stars?
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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.
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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.
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A falling drop at last will carve a stone.
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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.
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Nothing can be created out of nothing.
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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.
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It is pleasant, when the sea is high and the winds are dashing the waves about, to watch from the shores the struggles of another.
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Out beyond our world there are, elsewhere, other assemblages of matter making other worlds. Ours is not the only one in air’s embrace.
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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.
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Men conceal the past scenes of their lives.
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Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
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We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from.
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I own with reason: for, if men but knew Some fixed end to ills, they would be strong By some device unconquered to withstand Religions and the menacings of seers.
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It is pleasant, when the sea runs high, to view from land the great distress of another.
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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.
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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?
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Nothing comes from nothing.
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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.
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There is nothing that exists so great or marvelous that over time mankind does not admire it less and less.
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The first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.
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So much wrong could religion induce.
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Confess then, naught from nothing can become, Since all must have their seeds, wherefrom to grow, Wherefrom to reach the gentle fields of air.
LUCRETIUS