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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?

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Philosophy

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.