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. . . ."

The more laws, the less justice.

Law is the highest reason implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite.

A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.

Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.

Let flattery, the handmaid of the vices, be far removed .

No one could ever meet death for his country without the hope of immortality.