“For all things change, but nothing perishes.”Lucretius · Despre natura lucrurilor · -55 · Cartea I, versul 670
Nature does not destroy anything definitively, but only rearranges matter into new forms.
Lucretius rejects death as annihilation, seeing change instead as a rearrangement of atoms. Nothing truly vanishes; matter breaks down and reassembles into other forms. A rotting trunk feeds the soil, from which new plants sprout. The same energy that was in a man passes into tree, air, worm. Death is not an end, but a step in an endless cycle.
Why it matters It helps you see losses as transformations, not endings. In grief or failure, this Stoic perspective offers comfort and clarity.