Lucretius Quotes & Sayings

And since the mind is of a man one part,
Which in one fixed place remains, like ears,
And eyes, and every sense which pilots life;
And just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart,
Severed from us, can neither feel nor be,
But in the least of time is left to rot,
Thus mind alone can never be, without
The body and the man himself, which seems,
As 'twere the vessel of the same- or aught
Whate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined:
Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds. — Lucretius

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

(On the temperature of water in wells) The reason why the water in wells becomes colder in summer is that the earth is then rarefied by the heat, and releases into the air all the heat-particles it happens to have. So, the more the earth is drained of heat, the colder becomes the moisture that is concealed in the ground. On the other hand, when all the earth condenses and contracts and congeals with the cold, then, of course, as it contracts, it squeezes out into the wells whatever heat it holds. — Lucretius

Look at a man in the midst of doubt & danger and you will learn in his hour of adversity what he really is. — Lucretius

Out beyond our world there are, elsewhere, other assemblages of matter making other worlds. Ours is not the only one in air's embrace. — Lucretius

Anything made out of destructible matter Infinite time would have devoured before. But if the atoms that make and replenish the world Have endured through the immense span of the past Their natures are immortal-that is clear. Never can things revert to nothingness! — Lucretius

You alone govern the nature of things. Without you nothing emerges into the light of day, without you nothing is joyous or lovely. — Lucretius

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.
[Lat., Et metus ille foras praeceps Acheruntis agundus,
Funditis humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo,
Omnia suffuscans mortis nigrore, neque ullam
Esse voluptatem liquidam puramque relinquit.] — Lucretius

But yet creation's neither crammed nor blocked
About by body: there's in things a void-
Which to have known will serve thee many a turn,
Nor will not leave thee wandering in doubt,
Forever searching in the sum of all,
And losing faith in these pronouncements mine. — Lucretius

Lucretius, who follows [Epicurus] in denouncing love, sees no harm in sexual intercourse provided it is divorced from passion. — Lucretius

Things stand apart so far and differ, that What's food for one is poison for another. — Lucretius

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? — Lucretius

Many animals even now spring out of the soil, Coalescing from the rains and the heat of the sun. Small wonder, then, if more and bigger creatures, Full-formed, arose from the new young earth and sky. The breed, for instance, of the dappled birds Shucked off their eggshells in the springtime, as Crickets in summer will slip their slight cocoons All by themselves, and search for food and life. Earth gave you, then, the first of mortal kinds, For all the fields were soaked with warmth and moisture. — Lucretius

Now come: that thou mayst able be to know
That minds and the light souls of all that live
Have mortal birth and death, I will go on
Verses to build meet for thy rule of life,
Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil. — Lucretius

Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
And fruitful lands- for all of living things
Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
Through thee are risen to visit the great sun-
Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,
Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away,
For thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers,
For thee waters of the unvexed deep
Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
Glow with diffused radiance for thee! — Lucretius

For it is unknown what is the real nature of the soul, whether it be born with the bodily frame or be infused at the moment of birth, whether it perishes along with us, when death separates the soul and body, or whether it visits the shades of Pluto and bottomless pits, or enters by divine appointment into other animals.
[Lat., Ignoratur enim, quae sit natura animai;
Nata sit, an contra nascentibus insinuetur;
Et simul intereat nobiscum, morte diremta,
An tenebras Orci visat, vastasque lacunas:
An pecudes alias divinitus insinuet se.] — Lucretius

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. — Lucretius

When the body is assailed by the strong force of time and the limbs weaken from exhausted force, genius breaks down, and mind and speech fail.
[Lat., Ubi jam valideis quassatum est viribus aevi
Corpus, et obtuseis ceciderunt viribus artus,
Claudicat ingenium delirat linguaque mensque.] — Lucretius

When bodies spring apart, because the air
Somehow condenses, wander they from truth:
For then a void is formed, where none before;
And, too, a void is filled which was before. — Lucretius

These [the senses] we trust, first, last, and always. — Lucretius

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

Fear is the mother of all gods. — Lucretius

A property is that which not at all
Can be disjoined and severed from a thing
Without a fatal dissolution: such,
Weight to the rocks, heat to the fire, and flow
To the wide waters, touch to corporal things,
Intangibility to the viewless void. — Lucretius

By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death. — Lucretius

The sum total of all sums total is eternal (meaning the universe).
[Lat., Summarum summa est aeternum.] — Lucretius

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

When the supreme violence of a furious wind upon the sea sweeps over the waters the chief admiral of a fleet along with his mighty legions, does he not crave the gods' peace with vows and in his panic seek with prayers the peace of the winds and favouring breezes. Nonetheless, he is caught up in the furious hurricane and driven upon the shoals of death. — Lucretius

Death is nothing to us, it matters not one jot, since the nature of the mind is understood to be mortal. — Lucretius

No single thing abides; but all things flow. Fragment to fragment clings - the things thus grow Until we know them and name them. By degrees They melt, and are no more the things we know. — Lucretius

That also which before was from the earth, passes back into the earth, and that which was sent from the borders of ether, is carried back and taken in again by the quarters of heaven. Death does not extinguish things in such a way as to destroy the bodies of matter, but only breaks up the union amongst them, and then joins anew the different elements with others; and thus it comes to pass that all things change their shapes and alter their colors and receive sensations and in a moment yield them up... — Lucretius

At this stage you must admit that whatever is seen to be sentient is nevertheless composed of atoms that are insentient. The phenomena open to our observation so not contradict this conclusion or conflict with it. Rather they lead us by the hand and compel us to believe that the animate is born, as I maintain, of the insentient. — Lucretius

It is pleasant, when the sea is high and the winds are dashing the waves about, to watch from the shores the struggles of another. — Lucretius

First, then, I say, that the mind, which we often call the intellect, in which is placed the conduct and government of life, is not less an integral part of man himself, than the hand, and foot, and eyes, are portions of the whole animal. — Lucretius

For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true. This terror therefore and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and law of nature. — Lucretius

Time by itself does not exist; but from things themselves there results a sense of what has already taken place, what is now going on and what is to ensue. It must not be claimed that anyone can sense time by itself apart from the movement of things. — Lucretius

It was certainly not by design that the particles fell into order, they did not work out what they were going to do, but because many of them by many chances struck one another in the course of infinite time and encountered every possible form and movement, that they found at last the disposition they have, and that is how the universe was created. — Lucretius

The wailing of the newborn infant is mingled with the dirge for the dead. — Lucretius

Nay, the greatest wits and poets, too, cease to live;
Homer, their prince, sleeps now in the same forgotten sleep as do the others.
[Lat., Adde repertores doctrinarum atque leporum;
Adde Heliconiadum comites; quorum unus Homerus
Sceptra potitus, eadem aliis sopitu quiete est.] — Lucretius

What once sprung from the earth sinks back into the earth. — Lucretius

Nature impelled men to make sounds with their tongues And they found it useful to give names to things Much for the same reason that we see children now Have recourse to gestures because they cannot speak And point their fingers at things which appear before them. — Lucretius

Were a man to order his life by the rules of true reason, a frugal substance joined to a contented mind is for him great riches; for never is there any lack of a little. — Lucretius

Air, I should explain, becomes wind when it is agitated. — Lucretius

No 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. — Lucretius

Thus the sum of things is ever being reviewed, and mortals dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and like runners pass on the torch of life. — Lucretius

How many evils have flowed from religion. — Lucretius

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born. — Lucretius

What came from the earth returns back to the earth, and the spirit that was sent from heaven, again carried back, is received into the temple of heaven.
[Lat., Cedit item retro, de terra quod fuit ante,
In terras; et, quod missum est ex aetheris oreis,
Id rursum caeli relatum templa receptant.] — Lucretius

We notice that the mind grows with the body, and with it decays. — Lucretius

Religious questions have often led to wicked and impious actions. — Lucretius

Epicurus ... whose genius surpassed all humankind, extinguished the light of others, as the stars are dimmed by the rising sun. — Lucretius

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. — Lucretius

Vineyards and shining harvests, pastures, arbors,
And all this our very utmost toil
Can hardly care for, we wear down our strength
Whether in oxen or in men, we dull
The edges of our ploughshares, and in return
Our fields turn mean and stingy, underfed,
And so today the farmer shakes his head,
More and more often sighing that his work,
The labour of his hands, has come to naught. — Lucretius

Those vestiges of natures left behind
Which reason cannot quite expel from us
Are still so slight that naught prevents a man
From living a life even worthy of the gods. — Lucretius

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

Certainly it was no design of the atoms to place themselves in a particular order, nor did they decide what motions each should have. But atoms were struck with blows in many ways and carried along by their own weight from infinite times up to the present. They have been accustomed to move and to meet in all manner of ways. For this reason, it came to pass that being spread abroad through a vast time and trying every sort of combination and motion, at length those come together that produce great things, like earth and sea and sky and the generation of living creatures. — Lucretius

It's easier to avoid the snares of love than to escape once you are in that net. — Lucretius

We plainly perceive that the mind strengthens and decays with the body. — Lucretius

The old must always make way for the new, and one thing must be built out of the ruins of another. There is no murky pit of hell awaiting anyone. — Lucretius

For 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. — Lucretius

The body searches for that which has injured the mind with love. — Lucretius

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

If atom stocks are inexhaustible, Greater than power of living things to count, If Nature's same creative power were present too To throw the atoms into unions - exactly as united now, Why then confess you must That other worlds exist in other regions of the sky, And different tribes of men, kinds of wild beasts. — Lucretius

It is great wealth to a soul to live frugally with a contented mind. — Lucretius

Thus, then, the All that is is limited
In no one region of its onward paths,
For then 'tmust have forever its beyond. — Lucretius

All life is a struggle in the dark. — Lucretius

For there is a VOID in things; a truth which it will be useful for you, in reference to many points, to know; and which will prevent you from wandering in doubt. — Lucretius

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. — Lucretius

And life is given to none freehold, but it is leasehold for all. — Lucretius

I prove the supreme law of Gods and sky,
And the primordial germs of things unfold,
Whence Nature all creates, and multiplies
And fosters all, and whither she resolves
Each in the end when each is overthrown.
This ultimate stock we have devised to name
Procreant atoms, matter, seeds of things,
Or primal bodies, as primal to the world. — Lucretius

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

There is no place in nature for extinction. — Lucretius

We, peopling the void air, make gods to whom we impute the ills we ought to bear. — Lucretius

And thus thou canst remark that every act
At bottom exists not of itself, nor is
As body is, nor has like name with void;
But rather of sort more fitly to be called
An accident of body, and of place
Wherein all things go on. — Lucretius

Though the dungeon, the scourge, and the executioner be absent, the guilty mind can apply the goad and scorch with blows. — Lucretius

Even if I knew nothing of the atoms, I would venture to assert on the evidence of the celestial phenomena themselves, supported by many other arguments, that the universe was certainly not created for us by divine power: it is so full of imperfections. — Lucretius

From the very fountain of enchantment there arises a taste of bitterness to spread anguish amongst the flowers. — Lucretius

For piety lies not in being often seen turning a veiled head to stones, nor in approaching every altar, nor in lying prostratebefore the temples of the gods, nor in sprinkling altars with the blood of beastsbut rather in being able to look upon all things with a mind at peace. — Lucretius

If anyone decided to call the sea Neptune, and corn Ceres, and to misapply the name of Bacchus rather than to give liquor its right name, so be it; and let him dub the round world "Mother of the Gods" so long as he is careful not really to infest his mind with base superstitions. — Lucretius

It is pleasant, when the sea runs high, to view from land the great distress of another. — Lucretius

And many kinds of creatures must have died,
Unable to plant out new sprouts of life.
For whatever you see that lives and breathes and thrives
Has been, from the very beginning, guarded, saved
By it's trickery for its swiftness or brute strength.
And many have been entrusted to our care,
Commended by their usefulness to us.
For instance, strength supports a savage lion;
Foxes rely on their cunning; deer their flight. — Lucretius

Thus 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. — Lucretius

Poor humanity, to saddle the gods with such a responsibility and throw in a vindictive temper. What griefs they hatch for themselves, what festering sores for us, what tears for our prosperity! This is not piety, this oft-repeated show of bowing a veiled head before a graven image; this bustling to every altar; this kow-towing and prostration on the ground with palms outspread before the shrines of the gods; this deluging of vow on vow. True piety lies rather in the power to contemplate the universe with a quiet mind. — Lucretius

A falling drop at last will carve a stone. — Lucretius

Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation; not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive you are free of them yourself is pleasant. — Lucretius

Did men but know that there was a fixed limit to their woes, they would be able, in some measure, to defy the religious fictions and menaces of the poets; but now, since we must fear eternal punishment at death, there is no mode, no means, of resisting them. — Lucretius

O goddess, bestow on my words an immortal charm. — Lucretius

In a brief space the generations of beings are changed, and, like runners, pass on the torches of life. — Lucretius

Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift. — Lucretius

To 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. — Lucretius

Fear in sooth holds so in check all mortals, becasue thay see many operations go on in earth and heaven, the causes of which they can in no way understand, believing them therefore to be done by power divine. for these reasons when we shall have seen that nothing can be produced from nothing, we shall then more correctly ascertain that which we are seeking, both the elements out of which every thing can be produced and the manner in which every thing can be produced in which all things are done without the hands of the gods. — Lucretius

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

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? — Lucretius

Falling drops will at last wear away stone. — Lucretius

See with what force yon river's crystal stream
Resists the weight of many a massy beam.
To sink the wood the more we vainly toil,
The higher it rebounds, with swift recoil.
Yet that the beam would of itself ascend
No man will rashly venture to contend.
Thus too the flame has weight, though highly rare,
Nor mounts but when compelled by heavier air. — Lucretius

The fall of dropping water wears away the Stone. — Lucretius

The gods and their tranquil abodes appear, which no winds disturb, nor clouds bedew with showers, nor does the white snow, hardened by frost, annoy them; the heaven, always pure, is without clouds, and smiles with pleasant light diffused.
[Lat., Apparet divom numen, sedesque quietae;
Quas neque concutiunt ventei, nec nubila nimbeis.
Aspergunt, neque nex acri concreta pruina
Cana cadens violat; semper sine nubibus aether
Integer, et large diffuso lumine ridet.] — Lucretius

But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made
Completely solid, hither and thither fly
Forevermore unconquered through all time,
Now come, and whether to the sum of them
There be a limit or be none, for thee
Let us unfold; likewise what has been found
To be the wide inane, or room, or space
Wherein all things soever do go on,
Let us examine if it finite be
All and entire, or reach unmeasured round
And downward an illimitable profound. — Lucretius

Victory puts us on a level with heaven. — Lucretius

The mask is torn off, while the reality remains — Lucretius

Assuredly whatsoever things are fabled to exist in deep Acheron, these all exist in this life. There is no wretched Tantalus, fearing the great rock that hangs over him in the air and frozen with vain terror. Rather, it is in this life that fear of the gods oppresses mortals without cause, and the rock they fear is any that chance may bring. — Lucretius