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
stones doe heavy
If God can do anything he can make a stone so heavy that even he can't lift it. Then there is something God cannot do, he cannot lift the stone. Therefore God does not exist.
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.
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!
atheism creation made
One thing is made of another, and nature allows no new creation except at the price of death.
evil deeds prompts
Such evil deeds could religion prompt.
heart adversity reality
So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.
rainy-day greatest-wealth mind
The greatest wealth is to live content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied.
work mean men
Vineyards and shining harvests, pastures, arbors, And all this our very utmost toil Can hardly care for, we wear down our strength Whether in oxen or in men, we dull The edges of our ploughshares, and in return Our fields turn mean and stingy, underfed, And so today the farmer shakes his head, More and more often sighing that his work, The labour of his hands, has come to naught.
medicine sick mind
The mind like a sick body can be healed and changed by medicine.
odds atheism may
Since you must admit that there is nothing outside the universe, it can have no limit and is accordingly without end or measure. It makes no odds in which part of it you may take your stand; whatever spot anyone may occupy, the universe stretches away from him just the same in all directions without limit.
atheism world
There is so much wrong with the world. (tanta stat praedita culpa)
envy levels thunderbolts
The highest summits and those elevated above the level of other things are mostly blasted by envy as by a thunderbolt.
religious mean men
Did men but know that there was a fixed limit to their woes, they would be able, in some measure, to defy the religious fictions and menaces of the poets; but now, since we must fear eternal punishment at death, there is no mode, no means, of resisting them.
fighting mind atheism
Forbear to spew out reason from your mind, but rather ponder everything with keen judgment; and if it seems true, own yourself vanquished, but, if it is false, gird up your loins to fight.