It is pleasant, when the sea is high and the winds are dashing the waves about, to watch from the shores the struggles of another.

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. They have been accustomed to move and to meet in all manner of ways. For this reason, it came to pass that being spread abroad through a vast time and trying every sort of combination and motion, at length those come together that produce great things, like earth and sea and sky and the generation of living creatures.

So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.

Violence and wrong enclose all who commit them in their meshes and do mostly recoil on him from whom they begin.

Air, I should explain, becomes wind when it is agitated.

Why shed tears that you must die? For if your past life has been one of enjoyment, and if all your pleasures have not passed through your mind, as through a sieve, and vanished, leaving not a rack behind, why then do you not, like a thankful guest, rise cheerfully from life's feast, and with a quiet mind go take your rest.

Continual dropping wears away a stone.