Lucretius on Philosophy
← All quotes by Lucretius
4 quotes
Consider too how a baby, like a shipwrecked sailor tossed ashore by the savage waves, lies on the ground naked, speechless, and utterly helpless, as soon as nature has cast it forth with pangs of labor from its mother's womb into the shores of light; and how it fills the place with its woeful wailings—as well it may, seeing that life holds so much sorrow in store for it.
So long as the object of our desire is wanting, it seems more important than anything else; but later, when it is ours, we covet some other thing; and so an insatiable thirst for life keeps us always openmouthed.
How could it have harmed us never to have been created? Are we to believe that our life lay groveling in murk and misery until the first day of creation dawned for us? All people, once born, must certainly wish to remain in life, so long as seductive pleasure detains them; but if one has never tasted the love of life or been numbered among the living, how does it harm one not to have been created?
What loss were ours, if we had know not birth?
Let living me to longer life aspire,
While fond affection binds their hearts to earth
But who never hath tasted life's desire,
Unborn, impersonal, can feel no dearth.