The 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.
LUCRETIUSForbear to spew out reason from your mind, but rather ponder everything with keen judgment; and if it seems true, own yourself vanquished, but, if it is false, gird up your loins to fight.
More Lucretius Quotes
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Nothing comes from nothing.
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The first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.
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The sum total of all sums total is eternal (meaning the universe).
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Fear is the mother of all gods … Nature does all things spontaneously, by herself, without the meddling of the gods.
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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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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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One thing is made of another, and nature allows no new creation except at the price of death.
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Fear is the mother of all gods.
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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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So, little by little, time brings out each several thing into view, and reason raises it up into the shores of light.
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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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Too often in time past, religion has brought forth criminal and shameful actions… How many evils has religion caused?
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Why 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?
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Pleasant it to behold great encounters of warfare arrayed over the plains, with no part of yours in peril.
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Meantime, when once we know from nothing still Nothing can be create, we shall divine More clearly what we seek: those elements From which alone all things created are, And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.
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