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

To ask for power is forcing uphill a stone which after all rolls back again from the summit and seeks in headlong haste the levels of the plain.

From the heart of the fountain of delight rises a jet of bitterness that tortures us among the very flowers.

The first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.

The gods and their tranquil abodes appear, which no winds disturb, nor clouds bedew with showers, nor does the white snow, hardened by frost, annoy them; the heaven, always pure, is without clouds, and smiles with pleasant light diffused.

Such crimes has superstition caused.

No fact is so simple that it is not harder to believe than to doubt at the first presentation. Equally, there is nothing so mighty or so marvelous that the wonder it evokes does not tend to diminish in time.