Lucretius De Rerum Quotes & Sayings

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like? — Jean Cocteau

Palestine was the West Point and Annapolis for the world. In that little country God was training up a people out of whom, when the fullness of the time should come, His gospel cadets should emerge, fitted by all the training of all their national history for going out among the heathen and proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ. — William Mackergo Taylor

No friend had I made there, but I wasn't with this group to make friends, and besides, he sneered too much. I've found that people who sneer are almost always sneering at me. — Megan Whalen Turner

An athlete and actor are really two different temperaments, night and day. As an athlete you really keep things out and as an actor you really bring things in. — Carl Lewis

In De Rerum Natura, Lucretius pointed out a very central truth concerning the examined life. That is, that the man of science who concerns himself solely with science, who cannot enjoy and be enriched by art, is a misshapen man. An incomplete man. — William Styron

It's better for us all to die together, proud, than have them discredit us and take us apart and make us look like a bunch of crazy people," he said. "What do you think everybody committing suicide will look like?" Stephan wanted to know. "Well, at first, maybe they'll think we're crazy," Jones said. "But it's going to go down in history as a great act. — Tim Reiterman

For envy, like lightning, generally strikes at the top Or any point which sticks out from the ordinary level. LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura Our envy always outlives the felicity of its object. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Atomism was viciously persecuted as heresy throughout the early Christian era, and only one printed manuscript of De Rerum Naturum survived the flames. There are several translations; I have chosen the one translated by my fellow Devonian and Oxonian, W. Hannaford Brown. Brown's own manuscript was almost destroyed during the Nazi bombardment of England in 1943: if a religious book had survived so many vicissitudes we can easily imagine what the faithful would say. But Lucretius teaches us to live without such piffle. — Christopher Hitchens

I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms, said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it. — C.S. Lewis

Christianity did not begin with a confession. It began with an invitation into friendship, into creating a new community, into forming relationships based on love and service. — Diana Butler Bass

In January 1821, Thomas Jefferson wrote John Adams to "encourage a hope that the human mind will some day get back to the freedom it enjoyed 2000 years ago." This wish for a return to the era of philosophy would put Jefferson in the same period as Titus Lucretius Carus, thanks to whose six-volume poem De Rerum Naturum (On the Nature of Things) we have a distillation of the work of the first true materialists: Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus. These men concluded that the world was composed of atoms in perpetual motion, and Epicurus, in particular, went on to argue that the gods, if they existed, played no part in human affairs. It followed that events like thunderstorms were natural and not supernatural, that ceremonies of worship and propitiation were a waste of time, and that there was nothing to be feared in death. — Christopher Hitchens

When he walks, he sounds like a tree still full of dead leaves holding on. — Zachary Schomburg

It must not be claimed that anyone can sense time by itself apart from the movement of things. LUCRETIUS, De rerum natura1 — Carlo Rovelli

The feeling of being trapped, of being helpless against his strength, his lust, and what my body needed was almost overwhelming. My eyes shuttered closed at the effort of not struggling in his harsh grasp. He whispered against my face, and I could not focus enough to see him. "Do you want to ride the storm?" His breath was hot against my skin. His voice promised no gentleness, no compromise. I knew the kind of sex he was offering, and the thought of it tightened things low in my body, drew another small sound from my throat. "Yes," I whispered, "yes." The roll of thunder echoed down the hallway, shuddering between the stone walls. The sound seemed to vibrate out of his body and into mine as if my body were a tuning fork struck against the rim of some great metal cup. His voice growled against my skin, with the taste of thunder in it. "Good," he said and forced me to my knees. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Music is the electric soil in which the spirit thinks, lives and invents. All that's electrical stimulates the mind to flowing surging musical creation. I am electrical by nature. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

Once commonly called "atomism," the genealogy of atheism can be traced all the way back through the Enlightenment to Roman poets such as Lucretius and his poem De Rerum Natura, and behind that to Greek philosophers such as Epicurus and Democritus and their philosophy of atomism. It was precisely such a philosophy that contributed to the classical world a strong sense of fate and the futility of both life and human purpose. And it also provided the dark setting against which the brilliance of the hope of the good news of Jesus shone by contrast - as soon it will once again. — Os Guinness

Things work well when a group of people know each other, and things break down when it's a bunch of random people interacting. — Jimmy Wales

Flipping through the 'Toronto Star' one day in 2008, I noticed a piece about a phenomenal boxer from the Philippines who had won several different titles in several different weight divisions. Manny Pacquiao's rise from heart-crushing poverty to the top ranks of his sport was astounding. — Dan Hill

Loyalty is a very fine thing, but it shouldn't be allowed to get the bit between its teeth. I — Rex Stout

Perhaps we can take a turn in the garden. The slave can avail himself of the garden seat and rest his injuries'
'How thoughtful of you, Councillor,' said Laurent. He turned to Damen and said in a melting voice, 'Your back must hurt terribly.'
'It's fine,' said Damen.
'Kneel on the ground then,' Laurent said. — C.S. Pacat

All great questions must be raised by great voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes - let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the gratitude of mankind. — Robert Kennedy