Nothing contributes to the entertainment of the reader more, than the change of times and the vicissitudes of fortune.

I am much beholden to old age, which has increased my eagerness for conversation in proportion as it has lessened my appetites of hunger and thirst.

The following passage is one of those cited by Copernicus himself in his preface to De Revolutionibus: "The Syracusan Hicetas, as Theophrastus asserts, holds the view that the heaven, sun, moon, stars, and in short all of the things on high are stationary, and that nothing in the world is in motion except the earth, which by revolving and twisting round its axis with extreme velocity produces all the same results as would be produced if the earth were stationary and the heaven in motion. . . ."

O philosophy, you leader of life.

The first law for the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice.

Vicious habits are so odious and degrading that they transform the individual who practices them into an incarnate demon.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.