Not they who reject the gods are profane, but those who accept them.
LUCRETIUSNot they who reject the gods are profane, but those who accept them.
LUCRETIUSSuch evil deeds could religion prompt.
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.
LUCRETIUSFrom the heart of this fountain of delights wells up some bitter taste to choke them even amid the flowers.
LUCRETIUSWhat can give us more sure knowledge than our senses? How else can we distinguish between the true and the false?
LUCRETIUSTo ask for power is forcing uphill a stone which after all rolls back again from the summit and seeks in headlong haste the levels of the plain.
LUCRETIUSIt is pleasant, when the sea is high and the winds are dashing the waves about, to watch from the shores the struggles of another.
LUCRETIUSLucretius, who follows [Epicurus] in denouncing love, sees no harm in sexual intercourse provided it is divorced from passion.
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.
LUCRETIUSDo 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?
LUCRETIUSFear is the mother of all gods … Nature does all things spontaneously, by herself, without the meddling of the gods.
LUCRETIUSThe first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.
LUCRETIUSNo matter how difficult a task may look.. Persistence and steady action will get you through.
LUCRETIUSFear holds dominion over mortality Only because, seeing in land and sky So much the cause whereof no wise they know, Men think Divinities are working there.
LUCRETIUSFor fools admire and love those things they see hidden in verses turned all upside down, and take for truth what sweetly strokes the ears and comes with sound of phrases fine imbued.
LUCRETIUSIf 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