Under what law each thing was created, and how necessary it is for it to continue under this, and how it cannot annul the strong rules that govern its lifetime.
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Anand Thakur
Under what law each thing was created, and how necessary it is for it to continue under this, and how it cannot annul the strong rules that govern its lifetime.
LUCRETIUSI 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.
LUCRETIUSThe dreadful fear of hell is to be driven out, which disturbs the life of man and renders it miserable, overcasting all things with the blackness of darkness, and leaving no pure, unalloyed pleasure.
LUCRETIUSWhy dost thou not retire like a guest sated with the banquet of life, and with calm mind embrace, thou fool, a rest that knows no care?
LUCRETIUSThus 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.
LUCRETIUSThere is no place in nature for extinction.
LUCRETIUSViolence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things, and generally return upon him who began.
LUCRETIUSThe water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.
LUCRETIUSIf 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?
LUCRETIUSNo 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.
LUCRETIUSThus, then, the All that is is limited In no one region of its onward paths, For then ‘tmust have forever its beyond.
LUCRETIUSFor 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.
LUCRETIUSAll things obey fixed laws.
LUCRETIUSSo, little by little, time brings out each several thing into view, and reason raises it up into the shores of light.
LUCRETIUSThus 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.
LUCRETIUSThough the dungeon, the scourge, and the executioner be absent, the guilty mind can apply the goad and scorch with blows.
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