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Lucretius

Lucretius Quotes

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Famous Lucretius Quotes

“I 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.”

“See with what force yon river's crystal stream Resists the weight of many a massy beam. To sink the wood the more we vainly toil, The higher it rebounds, with swift recoil. Yet that the beam would of itself ascend No man will rashly venture to contend. Thus too the flame has weight, though highly rare, Nor mounts but when compelled by heavier air.”

“(On the temperature of water in wells) The reason why the water in wells becomes colder in summer is that the earth is then rarefied by the heat, and releases into the air all the heat-particles it happens to have. So, the more the earth is drained of heat, the colder becomes the moisture that is concealed in the ground. On the other hand, when all the earth condenses and contracts and congeals with the cold, then, of course, as it contracts, it squeezes out into the wells whatever heat it holds.”