Lucretius

Though the dungeon, the scourge, and the executioner be absent, the guilty mind can apply the goad and scorch with blows.

Pleasant it to behold great encounters of warfare arrayed over the plains, with no part of yours in peril.

Sweet it is, when on the high seas the winds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the land on another's struggles.

What is food to one man is bitter poison to others.

And life is given to none freehold, but it is leasehold for all.

Thus the sum of things is ever being reviewed, and mortals dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and...

So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.

In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers.

Life is one long struggle in the dark.

Victory puts us on a level with heaven.