If anyone decided to call the sea Neptune, and corn Ceres, and to misapply the name of Bacchus rather than to give liquor its right name, so be it; and let him dub the round world "Mother of the Gods" so long as he is careful not really to infest his mind with base superstitions.

Mother of Aeneas, pleasure of men and gods. -Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas

Assuredly 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.

Anything made out of destructible matter Infinite time would have devoured before. But if the atoms that make and replenish the world Have endured through the immense span of the past Their natures are immortal-that is clear. Never can things revert to nothingness!

The old must always make way for the new, and one thing must be built out of the ruins of another. There is no murky pit of hell awaiting anyone.

Fear was the first thing on Earth to create gods.

So much wrong could religion induce.