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
death sleep forgotten
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.]
men leaving darkness
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.]
strong way fool
It's easier to avoid the snares of love than to escape once you are in that net whose cords and knots are strong; but even so, enmeshed, entangled, you can still get out unless, poor fool, you stand in your own way.
rocks air atheism
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.
flower vex bitterness
From the midst of the very fountain of pleasure, something of bitterness arises to vex us in the flower of enjoyment.
So much wrong could religion induce.
men long atheism
Long time men lay oppress'd with slavish fear Religion's tyranny did domineer ... At length a mighty one of Greece began To assert the natural liberty of man, By senseless terrors and vain fancies let To slavery. Straight the conquered phantoms fled.
light darkness atheism
Those things that are in the light we behold from darkness.
atheism life-is given
And life is given to none freehold, but it is leasehold for all.
fall atheism atoms
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.
change spring flower
Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom springs. [Lat., Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.]
struggle dark life-is
All life is a struggle in the dark.
infinity centre
There can be no centre in infinity.
mind decay body
We notice that the mind grows with the body, and with it decays.