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When they had got them huts and skins, and fire, and woman mated with man was appropriated to one, [and the laws of wedlock] became known, and they saw offspring born to them, then first the human race began to grow soft. For the fire saw to it that their shivering bodies were less able to endure cold under the canopy of heaven.

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More quotes by Lucretius

By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death.

Men are eager to tread underfoot what they have once too much feared.

In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers.

The world was never made for us by divine power: so great are the faults with which it stands endowed.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Lucretius (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.