Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 1.926-930

avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
trita solo. iuvat integros accedere fontis
atque haurire, iuvatque novos decerpere flores
insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam
unde prius nulli velarunt tempora Musae.

I traverse the unfrequented places of the Pierides, never before trodden by the foot of man. It pleases me to approach the untouched springs and drink them in, and it pleases me to pluck new flowers, and to seek for my head a garland of distinction from this place, from which the Muses have never previously wreathed any man’s temples.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 5.821-827

quare etiam atque etiam maternum nomen adepta
terra tenet merito, quoniam genus ipsa creavit
humanum atque animal prope certo tempore fudit
omne quod in magnis bacchatur montibus passim,
aëriasque simul volucres variantibus formis.
sed quia finem aliquam pariendi debet habere,
destitit, ut mulier spatio defessa vetusto.

Therefore, again and again, the earth deservedly holds the name of ‘mother’ which she has acquired, since she herself created the human race and almost at a fixed time she has produced every animal which roams all over the great mountains, and, at the same time, the birds of the air in their varied forms. But, because she must have some limit to her birthing, she ceased, like a woman worn out by the extent of her age.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 3.995-1002

Sisyphus in vita quoque nobis ante oculos est,
qui petere a populo fasces saevasque secures
imbibit et semper victus tristisque recedit.
nam petere imperium, quod inanest nec datur umquam,
atque in eo semper durum sufferre laborem,
hoc est adverso nixantem trudere monte
saxum, quod tamen e summo iam vertice rusum
volvitur et plani raptim petit aequora campi.

Sisyphus is also before our eyes during our lives – he’s a man who resolves to seek from the populace the fasces and the savage axes, and who always withdraws defeated and dejected. For to seek power (which is an empty name and is never granted), and for that purpose always to bear with hard toil, is to lean on a rock and shove it up an adverse hill; but then it’s already rolling back from the highest peak and making hurriedly for the flat ground’s plain.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 2.1-4

suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,
e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
non quia vexari quemquam’st iucunda voluptas,
sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.

It is a sweet thing, when the winds are troubling the surface of the great sea, to look out from the land at the great trouble of another, not because it is a delightful pleasure that someone is being vexed, but because perceiving those troubles which you are free from is a sweet thing.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 3.832-7

Lucretius presents the Epicurean notion that after death we experience nothing – just like before we were alive. He really ratchets up the language here: undique, omnia, trepido concussa tumultu, horrida contremuere, altis, cadendum, omnibus humanis, which serves to emphasize how even the biggest and noisiest disturbances still meant nothing to the then unborn reader.

et vel ut ante acto nihil tempore sensimus aegri,
ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,
omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu
horrida contremuere sub altis aetheris auris,
in dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna cadendum
omnibus humanis esset terraque marique […]

And just as we felt no sorrow in a time now passed, when the Carthaginians were coming from all sides to fight, when everything shook with the agitated tumult of war and quaked terribly under the sky’s high breezes, and it was doubtful into which of their two empires the whole of humanity, on land and sea, would fall […]