The gods and their tranquil abodes appear, which no winds disturb, nor clouds bedew with showers, nor does the white snow, hardened by frost, annoy them; the heaven, always pure, is without clouds, and smiles with pleasant light diffused.

I return to the newborn world, and the soft-soil fields, What their first birthing lifted to the shores Of light, and trusted to the wayward winds. First the Earth gave the shimmer of greenery And grasses to deck the hills; then over the meadows The flowering fields are bright with the color of springtime, And for all the trees that shoot into the air.

Certainly it was no design of the atoms to place themselves in a particular order, nor did they decide what motions each should have. But atoms were struck with blows in many ways and carried along by their own weight from infinite times up to the present.

... 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.

No single thing abides; but all things flow. Fragment to fragment clings - the things thus grow Until we know them and name them. By degrees They melt, and are no more the things we know.

The body searches for that which has injured the mind with love.

There is no place in nature for extinction.