“You see that stones are worn away by time,Rocks rot, and twoers topple, even the shrinesAnd images of the gods grow very tired,Develop crack or wrinkles, their holy willsUnable to extend their fated term,To litigate against the Laws of Nature.And don't we see the monuments of menCollapse, as if to ask us, "Are not weAs frail as those whom we commemorate?"?Boulders come plunging down from the mountain heights,Poor weaklings with no power to resistThe thrust that says to them, Your time has come!But they would be rooted in steadfastnessHad they endured from time beyond all time,As far back as infinity. Look about you!Whatever it is that holds in its embraceAll earth, if it projects, as some men say,All things out of itself, and takes them backWhen they have perished, must itself consistOf mortal elements. The parts must addUp to the sum. Whatever gives awayMust lose in the procedure, and gain againWhenever it takes back.”

“fear in sooth holds so in check all mortals, becasue thay see many operations go on in earth and heaven, the causes of which they can in no way understand, believing them therefore to be done by power divine. for these reasons when we shall have seen that nothing can be produced from nothing, we shall then more correctly ascertain that which we are seeking, both the elements out of which every thing can be produced and the manner in which every thing can be produced in which all things are done without the hands of the gods.”

“For fools admire and love those things they see hidden in verses turned all upside down, and take for truth what sweetly strokes the ears and comes with sound of phrases fine imbued.”

“...nothing is more blissful than to occupy the heights effectively fortified by the teaching of the wise, tranquil sanctuaries from which you can look down upon others and see them wandering everywhere in their random search for the way of life, competing for intellectual eminence, disputing about rank, and striving night and day with prodigious effort to scale the summit of wealth and to secure power. O minds of mortals, blighted by your blindness! Amid what deep darkness and daunting dangers life’s little day is passed! To think that you should fail to see that nature importantly demands only that the body may be rid of pain, and that the mind, divorced from anxiety and fear, may enjoy a feeling of contentment!”

“The supply of matter in the universe was never more tightly packed than it is now, or more widely spread out. For nothing is ever added to it or subtracted from it. It follows that the movement of atoms today is no different from what it was in bygone ages and always will be. So the things that have regularly come into being will continue to come into being in the same manner; they will be and grow and flourish so far as each is allowed by the laws of nature.”

“I believe when I am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or grotesque, and some wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away....the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them.”

“We look for the Secret - the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of the Wise, Supreme Enlightenment, 'God' or whatever...and all the time it is carrying us about...It is the human nervous system itself.”