Lucretius Quotes

From the heart of the fountain of delight rises a jet of bitterness that tortures us among the very flowers.

It is doubtful what fortune to-morrow will bring.

Never trust the calm sea when she shows her false alluring smile.

The mind like a sick body can be healed and changed by medicine.

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?

Continual dropping wears away a stone.

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.

Men are eager to tread underfoot what they have once too much feared.

What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others.

Yet a little while, and (the happy hour) will be over, nor ever more shall we be able to recall it.

For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers.

Violence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things, and generally return upon him who began.

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.

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.

It is a pleasure for to sit at ease Upon the land, and safely for to see How other folks are tossed on the seas That with the blustering winds turmoiled be.

It is pleasurable, when winds disturb the waves of a great sea, to gaze out from land upon the great trials of another.

Life is one long struggle in the dark.

Confess then, naught from nothing can become, Since all must have their seeds, wherefrom to grow, Wherefrom to reach the gentle fields of air.

The mask is torn off, while the reality remains

The highest summits and those elevated above the level of other things are mostly blasted by envy as by a thunderbolt.

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.

The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.

You may complete as many generations as you please during your life; none the less will that everlasting death await you.

What can give us more sure knowledge than our senses? How else can we distinguish between the true and the false?

All things around, convulsed with violent thunder, seem to tremble, and the mighty walls of the capacious world appear at once to have started and burst asunder.

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.

So, little by little, time brings out each several thing into view, and reason raises it up into the shores of light.