“Air, I should explain, becomes wind when it is agitated.”

The first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.

Not they who reject the gods are profane, but those who accept them.

All things keep on in everlasting motion, Out of the infinite come the particles, Speeding above, below, in endless dance.

Fear is the mother of all gods.

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?

Rest, brother, rest. Have you done ill or well Rest, rest, There is no God, no gods who dwell Crowned with avenging righteousness on high Nor frowning ministers of their hate in hell.

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

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

Falling drops will at last wear away stone.

Whenever anything changes and quits its proper limits, this change is at once the death of that which was before.

From the heart of this fountain of delights wells up some bitter taste to choke them even amid the flowers.

Mother of Aeneas, pleasure of men and gods.

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

Deprived of pain, and also deprived of danger, able to do what it wants, [Nature] does not need us, nor understands our deserts, and it cannot be angry.

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?

Those things that are in the light we behold from darkness.