LUCRETIUS

So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.

The fall of dropping water wears away the Stone.

Life is one long struggle in the dark.

Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion.

Sweet it is, when on the high seas the winds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the land on another's struggles.

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

What is food to one man is bitter poison to others.

Victory puts us on a level with heaven.

The drops of rain make a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.

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.

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

The greatest wealth is to live content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied.

Pleasant it to behold great encounters of warfare arrayed over the plains, with no part of yours in peril.

In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers.

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

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.

The sum of all sums is eternity.

From the heart of the fountain of delight rises a jet of bitterness that tortures us among the very flowers.

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

Nothing can be created out of nothing.

To what great evils has religion been able to impel men.

[N]ature repairs one thing from another and allows nothing to be born without the aid of another's death.

Only religion can lead to such evil.

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 that 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 daylight, but by the aspect and law of nature.

... deprived of pain, and also deprived of danger, able to do what it wants, [Nature] does not need us, nor understands our deserts, and it cannot be angry.