On the Nature of Things

by Lucretius

But by no means every pleasure is to be taken, and by no means every pain is to be avoided, because pleasure (as anyone who drinks to excess can confirm) sometimes leads to pain, and pain (as anyone who has endured the dentist’s drill knows) sometimes leads to pleasure (Letter to Menoeceus 129

but by strictly limiting one’s desires and eliminating all those that are incapable of satisfaction and therefore bound to cause one pain.

“If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not increase his means, but diminish his desire

And with reason; for if people realized that there was a limit set to their tribulations, they would somehow find strength to defy irrational beliefs and the threats of the fable-mongers.

induce me to forego sleep and spend the still calm of the night in quest of words and verses that will enable me to light the way brightly for your mind and thus help you to see right to the heart of hidden things.

any given thing possesses a distinct creative capacity.

"Appointed" seems to imply an appointee, no?

Entropy.

nature renews one thing from another, and does not sanction the birth of anything unless she receives the compensation of another’s death.

These bodies cannot be shattered by the impact of blows from without, nor can their fabric be penetrated and so unraveled from within, nor can they be demolished by any other kind of assault; this [530] is a point I explained to you a little while ago.

For fools always have a greater admiration and liking for any idea that they see obscured in a mist of paradoxical language, and adopt as true what succeeds in prettily tickling their ears and is painted with a specious sound.

victims of beguilement, but not of betrayal, since by this means they recover strength and health.

because throughout the universe from time everlasting countless numbers of them, buffeted and impelled by blows, have shifted in countless ways, experimentation with every kind of movement and combination has at last resulted in arrangements such as those that created and compose our world;80 and the world, guaranteed preservation through many long years once it had [1030] been directed into harmonious movements,

Runs counter to entropy?