Copernicus—Vita brevis

Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer (1668)

Vita brevis, sensus ebes, negligentiæ torpor et inutiles occupationes nos pancula scire permittent. Et aliquotients scita excutit ab animo per temporum frandatrix scientiæ et inimica memoriam præceps oblivio.

The brevity of life, the failing of the senses, the numbness of indifference and unprofitable occupations allow us to know very little. And again and again swift oblivion, the thief of knowledge and the enemy of memory, makes a void of the mind, in the course of time, even what we learn we lose.

–Nicholas Copernicus, fragmentary scrap found among his papers (ca. 1540)