Fear is the mother of all gods ... Nature does all things spontaneously, by herself, without the meddling of the gods.
LucretiusSweet it is, when on the high seas the winds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the land on another's struggles.
LucretiusI 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.
LucretiusYou may complete as many generations as you please during your life; none the less will that everlasting death await you.
LucretiusAssuredly whatsoever things are fabled to exist in deep Acheron, these all exist in this life. There is no wretched Tantalus, fearing the great rock that hangs over him in the air and frozen with vain terror. Rather, it is in this life that fear of the gods oppresses mortals without cause, and the rock they fear is any that chance may bring.
Lucretius