All the lessons of history in four sentences, by Charles A. Beard:

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power.

The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small.

The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Quoted by Arthur H. Secord, "Condensed History Lesson", Readers' Digest, Vol. 38, No. 226 (February 1941), p. 20. Secord reports that "Asked if he could summarize the lessons of history in a short book, [Beard] replied that he could do it in [these] four sentences."

The first statement is an ancient anonymous proverb, sometimes wrongly attributed to Euripides. The second is from Friedrich von Logau, "Retribution", Sinngedichte III, 2, 24, c. 1654, as translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The origins of the third and fourth have not been determined.