Q0229

Lucretius

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Pleasant it is, when winds trouble the great sea, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation.
Thinker Lucretius
School Epicureanism
Source De Rerum Natura II.1–2
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with De Rerum Natura II.1–2, within the tradition of Epicureanism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Lucretius's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Lucretius. (n.d.). Pleasant it is, when winds trouble the great sea, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0229

MLA: Lucretius. “Pleasant it is, when winds trouble the great….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0229.

Chicago: Lucretius. “Pleasant it is, when winds trouble the great….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0229.

Same thinker

More from Lucretius

  1. Nothing can be created from nothing by divine agency.
  2. Therefore death is nothing to us, and does not concern us at all.
  3. When human life lay foully for all to see, crushed to the earth under heavy religion…
  4. From the very fountain of delights rises something bitter that chokes among the flowers themselves.

All quotations by Lucretius

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme