Lucretius

I've been looking through some old papers and found these quotes that I wrote down for whatever reason that came from Lucretius. He was a philosopher of sorts and was alive around 99 BC to 55 BC.

I'm fairly sure these quotes came from "On the Nature of Things". I marked the page number of each quote even though each publication probably doesn't match up to this. However, it helps break things up.

If I may borrow from Wikipedia: The poem grandly proclaims the reality of our role in a universe which is ruled by chance, with no interference from gods.

p.1
Lucretius on what will be known as evolution:

In those days many species must have died out altogether and failed to reproduce their kind. Every species that you now see drawing the breath of life has been protected and preserved from the beginning of the world either by cunning or by prowess or by speed.

p.2
Lucretius addressed centaurs and rationally argued against their existence through:
1) both humans and horses have different maturation rates.
2) their behavioral traits differ - horses are afraid of fire.
3) their diets are different - horses can eat foods that are poisonous to humans.

Each species develops according to its own kind, and they all guard their specific characters in obedience to the laws of nature.

p.3
...they appealed on behalf of their children and womenfolk, pointing out with gestures and inarticulate cries that is right for everyone to pity the weak.

This is Lucretius attempting to understand why men support and protect their family and also how language may have come into being. He points out that animals have their own universal noises for certain circumstances or emotions.

p.6
Lucretius on how clothing came into being with a bit of "insight" from pre-feminist days:

As to costume, plaited clothes came before woven ones. Woven fabrics came after fabrics, because iron is needed for making a loom. Nature ordained that this should be men's work before it was women's. For the male sex as a whole is by far the more skillful and gifted in the arts. But eventually it was damned as effeminate by a censorious peasantry.

p.7
Lucretius on technology and the progression of culture within human beings:

[Everything was] taught gradually by usage and the active mind's experience as men groped their way forward step by step. So each particular development is brought gradually to the fore by the advance of time, and reason lifts it into the light of day.