When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

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. . . ."

Of all the rewards of virtue, . . . the most splendid is fame, for it is fame alone that can offer us the memory of posterity.

Fire and water are not of more universal use than friendship.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

Wars are to be undertaken in order that it may be possible to live in peace without molestation.

In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.