What once sprung from the earth sinks back into the earth.

Nothing can be created out of nothing.

The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.

For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers.

Out beyond our world there are, elsewhere, other assemblages of matter making other worlds. Ours is not the only one in air's embrace.

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.

To ask for power is forcing uphill a stone which after all rolls back again from the summit and seeks in headlong haste the levels of the plain.