Lucretius
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Caruswas a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem De rerum natura about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which is usually translated into English as On the Nature of Things...
NationalityRoman
ProfessionPoet
science past infinite-time
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!
mother atheist religion
Fear is the mother of all gods.
believe simple doubt
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.
men wind sea
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.
evil deeds prompts
Such evil deeds could religion prompt.
imperfection atoms venture
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.
atheism creation made
One thing is made of another, and nature allows no new creation except at the price of death.
running sea land
It is pleasant, when the sea runs high, to view from land the great distress of another.
eternity eternal
The sum total of all sums total is eternal.
pits way ruins
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.
lying blood mind
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.
violence mesh recoil
Violence and wrong enclose all who commit them in their meshes and do mostly recoil on him from whom they begin.
water stones force
The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.
air void bears
We, peopling the void air, make gods to whom we impute the ills we ought to bear.