So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.

It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.

It is easy to utter what has been kept silent, but impossible to recall what has been uttered.

Knavery is the best defense against a knave.

A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can."

This excerpt is presented as reproduced by Copernicus in the preface to De Revolutionibus: "Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in rotation from west to east around its own center."

Time is the wisest of all counselors.