Lucretius Quotes

Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.

He that can swim needs not despair to fly; to swim is to fly in a grosser fluid, and to fly is to swim in a subtler. We are only to proportion our power of resistance to the different density of matter through which we are to pass. You will be necessarily upborne by the air if you can renew any impulse upon it faster than the air can recede from the pressure.

Try squeezing a handful of water, and see how quickly it disappears. But relax and let your hand flow in the same water, and you have the experience of the water as long as you like.

All things want to float.

Of the four elements water is the second in weight and the second in respect of mobility. It is never at rest until it unites with the sea.

The floating vapour is just as true an illustration of the law of gravity as the falling avalanche.

Buoyed by water, he can fly in any direction - up, down, sideways - by merely flipping his hand. Under water, man becomes an archangel.

Know from the rivers in clefts and in crevices: those in small channels flow noisily, the great flow silent. Whatever's not full makes noise. Whatever is full is quiet.

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress.

Wanting anything too desperately is a form of aggression and violence, which will always be met with resistance.

The temptation was great to muster what force we could and put up a fight. It's the easiest way out, and the most satisfactory to self-respect--but, nearly invariably, the stupidest.

A cylinder of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere is of equal weight with a cylinder of water about 33 feet high.

Nothing which consists of corporeal matter is absolutely light, but that is comparatively lighter which is rarer, either by its own nature, or by accidental heat. And it is not to be thought that light bodies are escaping to the surface of the universe while they are carried upwards, or that they are not attracted by the earth. They are attracted, but in a less degree, and so are driven outwards by the heavy bodies; which being done, they stop, and are kept by the earth in their own place.

When you are getting kicked from the rear it means you are in front.

Fight them everywhere. Don't give them a chance to breathe until they withdraw and retreat.

What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any one moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say: There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History.

Indignation does no good unless it is backed with a club of sufficient size to awe the opposition.

Without resistance you can do nothing

The waves belong to the water. Does the water belong to the waves?

Those who need a champion cannot afford compromise, in the face of forces that are powerful, persistent and pernicious and greedy.

I'm fundamentally, I think, an outsider. I do my best work and feel most braced with my back to the wall. It's an odd feeling though, writing aginst the current: difficult entirely to disregard the current. Yet of course I shall.

You have to get into the water and learn against what seems to be the law gravity to float and dancing, or athletics takes you years before you develop a skill. But if you work at it, practicing daily, you can enable your body to do things that are utterly impossible to an untrained physic.

Subversion is what I do.

Sometimes you must go against the wheel's turn.