Lucretius Quotes

“A man leaves his great house because he's bored
With life at home, and suddenly returns,
Finding himself no happier abroad.
He rushes off to his villa driving like mad,
You'ld think he's going to a house on fire,
And yawns before he's put his foot inside,
Or falls asleep and seeks oblivion,
Or even rushes back to town again.
So each man flies from himself (vain hope, because
It clings to him the more closely against his will)
And hates himself because he is sick in mind
And does not know the cause of his disease.”
― Lucretius

“Air, I should explain, becomes wind when it is agitated.”
― Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

“All things keep on in everlasting motion,
Out of the infinite come the particles,
Speeding above, below, in endless dance.”
― Lucretius

“The supply of matter in the universe was never more tightly packed than it is now, or more widely spread out. For nothing is ever added to it or subtracted from it. It follows that the movement of atoms today is no different from what it was in bygone ages and always will be. So the things that have regularly come into being will continue to come into being in the same manner; they will be and grow and flourish so far as each is allowed by the laws of nature.”
― Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

“Visible objects therefore do not perish utterly, since nature repairs one thing from another and allows nothing to be born without the aid of another's death.”
― Lucretius

“Furthermore, as the body suffers the horrors of disease and the pangs of pain, so we see the mind stabbed with anguish, grief and fear. What more natural than that it should likewise have a share in death?”
― Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

“Nothing exists but amalgams of matter and space.”
― Titus Lucretius Carus, On the Nature of Things

“Burning fevers flee no swifter from your body if you toss under figured counterpanes and coverlets of crimson than if you must lie in rude homespun.”
― Lucretius, On the Nature of things

“The popular conception of any philosophical doctrine is necessarily imperfect, and very generally unjust. Lucretius is often alluded to as an atheistical writer, who held the silly opinion that the universe was the result of a fortuitous concourse of atoms readers are asked to consider how long letters must be shaken in a bag before a complete annotated edition of Shakespeare could result from the process; and after being reminded how much more complex the universe is than the works of Shakespeare, they are expected to hold Lucretius, with his teachers and his followers, in derision. A nickname which sticks has generally some truth in it, and so has the above view, but it would be unjust to form our judgment of a man from his nickname alone, and we may profitably consider what the real tenets of Lucretius were, especially now that men of science are beginning, after a long pause in the inquiry, once more eagerly to attempt some explanation of the ultimate constitution of matter.”
― Fleeming Jenkin, Papers, Literary, Scientific, Etc. (Cambridge Library Collection - Technology)

“To paraphrase Lucretius, there's nothing more useful than to watch a man or woman in times of contagious deadly disease peril combined with his or her assumptions of financial adversity to discern what kind of man or woman they really are.”
― T.K. Naliaka

“The whole of life but labours in the dark.
For just as children tremble and fear all
In the viewless dark, so even we at times
Dread in the light so many things that be
No whit more fearsome than what children feign,
Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
This terror then, this darkness of the mind,
Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,
But only nature's aspect and her law.”
― Titus Lucretius Carus, Lucretius On the Nature of Things

“Humana ante oculos foede cum vita iaceret in terris oppressa gravi sub religione quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat horribili super aspectu mortalibus instants, primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra, quem neque fama deum nec fulmina nec minitanti murmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis acrem irritat animi virtutem, effringere ut arta naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret. Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra processit longe flammantia moenia mundi atque omne immensum peragravit mente animoque, unde refert nobis victor quid possit oriri, quid nequeat, finita potestas denique cuique quanam sit ratione atque alte terminus haerens.
Quare religio pedibus subiecta vicissim obteritur, nos exaequat victoria caelo.”
― Lucretius, La natura delle cose

“In good reading there ought to be no ‘problem of belief’. I read Lucretius and Dante at a time when (by and large) I agreed with Lucretius. I have read them since I came (by and large) to agree with Dante. I cannot find that this has much altered my experience, or at all altered my evaluation, of either. A true lover of literature should be in one way like an honest examiner, who is prepared to give the highest marks to the telling, felicitous and well-documented exposition of views he dissents from or even abominates.”
― C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

“Here a philosopher might profit from the study of man, observing with what rapidity a change in atmosphere drives him from one state to another. An hour ago our sailors were drunk and cursing. Now they raised their hands to implore Heaven’s protection. Fear is truly the wellspring of religion and, as Lucretius said, the mother of all cults. Were man gifted with a better constitution and a nature less prone to disorder, we’d never hear talk of gods on earth.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. II