The highest summits and those elevated above the level of other things are mostly blasted by envy as by a thunderbolt.

Sweet it is, when on the high seas the winds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the land on another's struggles.

Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift.

The first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.

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

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.

Were a man to order his life by the rules of true reason, a frugal substance joined to a contented mind is for him great riches; for never is there any lack of a little.