Do we not see all humans unaware Of what they want, and always searching everywhere, And changing place, as if to drop the load they bear?

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.

What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others

(On the temperature of water in wells) The reason why the water in wells becomes colder in summer is that the earth is then rarefied by the heat, and releases into the air all the heat-particles it happens to have. So, the more the earth is drained of heat, the colder becomes the moisture that is concealed in the ground. On the other hand, when all the earth condenses and contracts and congeals with the cold, then, of course, as it contracts, it squeezes out into the wells whatever heat it holds.

You alone govern the nature of things. Without you nothing emerges into the light of day, without you nothing is joyous or lovely.

Fear is the mother of all gods.

Yet a little while, and (the happy hour) will be over, nor ever more shall we be able to recall it.