"For even as children are flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness, thus we in the daylig t 

 fear at times things not a whit more to be dreaded than those which children shudder at in the dark and fancy 

 sure to be. This terror, therefore, and darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun and 

 glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and law of nature." — De Rerum Natura, II, 55-61. 



"The older view of idealistic duaUsm is breaking up with all its mystic and anthropistic dogmas; but 

 upon the vast field of ruins rises, majestic and brilliant, the new sun of our realistic monism, which reveals 

 to us the wonderful temple of nature in all its beauty." — Weltrdthsel, 381-82. 



"Lucretius, even in the Judgment of the Antients is both a very great Poet and Philosopher, but full 

 of Lies: for having follow'd the Epicurean Sect, his opinions concerning God, and of the Creation of 

 Things, are quite different from the Doctrine of Plato, and of the other Academicks; for which Reason some 

 believe that he ought not to be read by Christians, who adore and worship the true God. But since Truth 

 the more it is inquir'd into, shines the more bright, and appears the more venerable, Lucretius, and all that 

 are like Lucretius, even tho' they be Lyars, as they certainly are, ought in my opinion to be read." — Aldus 

 Pius in a letter to Albertus Pius. 



