Saturday, October 25, 2014

About Fear

Nam veluti pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis
in tenebris metuunt, sic nos in luce timemus
interdum, nilo quae sunt metuenda magis quam
quae pueri in tenebris pavitant finguntque futura.
hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest
non radii solis neque lucida tela diei
discutiant sed naturae species ratioque.

For as children tremble and fear everything
in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear
what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark
hold in terror and imagine will come true.
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.
Lucretius (De rerum natura, book II)

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