Let us restate the problem for ease of reference. The equations are $\dot{x}(t)=y(t)$ $\dot{y}(t)= - 4 x(t) + y(t)^2$ Physically they describe an anharmonic oscillator with spatial coordinate $x(t)$ and velocity $y(t)$ in the potential $U = 2 x^2 - \frac{1}{3} x^3$ and the energy $E = \frac{1}{2} y^2 + U(x)$ The problem is then: given two solutions $s_{1}(t) = (x_{1}(t), y_{1}(t))$ $s_{2}(t) = (x_{2}(t), y_{2}(t))$ corresponding to the initial conditions $s_{1}(0) = (x_{1}(t=0) = x_{10}, y_{1}(t=0) = y_{10})$ $s_{2}(0) = (x_{2}(t=0) = x_{20}, y_{2}(t=0) = y_{20})$ Assuming that $y10$ and $y20$ do not vanish show that the quantity $d(t) = y1(t) + y2(t)$ becomes $\neq 0$ for times $t>0$ even if it is $= 0$ for $t = 0$, i.e. $y10 + y20 = 0$. We prove it indirectly, assuming $d(t) = 0$ for all times. The idea is to expand the solution $y(t)$ into a power series in t. $y(t) = y(0) + t \dot{y}(0) + \frac{1}{2} \ddot{y}(0) + \frac{1}{6} \frac{\partial ^3y(0)}{\partial t^3} + ...$ In order to have $d(t) = 0$, all coefficients must vanish. These can be expressed through the initial values, and the first coefficients are $c(0) = (y10 + y20) $ $c(1) = - 4 (x10 + x20) + (x10^2 + x20^2) $ $c(2) = - 4 (y10 + y20) + 2 ( x10 y10 + x20 y20 ) $ $c(3) = 2 (y10^2 + y20^2) + 2 ( x10^3+x20^3 ) -12 (x10^2 + x20^2) + 16 (x10 + x20)) $ Since we have $y10 + y20 = 0$, $d(t) = 0$ requires $c(1) = 0 = - 4 (x10 + x20) + (x10^2 + x20^2) $ $c(2) = 0 = 2 y10 (x10 - x20) $ $c(3) = 0 = 4 y10^2 + 2 ( x10^3+x20^3 ) -12 (x10^2 + x20^2) + 16 (x10 + x20)) $ From $c(2) = 0$ and $y10 \neq 0$ we find $x20 = x10$. Hence $c(1) = 0 = - 4 x10 + x10^2 $ $c(3) = 0 = y10^2 + x10(x10-2)(x10-4) $ Both solutions of $c(1) = 0$ give $y10 = 0$. The contradiction proves the assertion of the OP. Observation: if we would drop the term $x^2$ in the second equation we can have $d(t) = 0$ by taking $x10 = x20$