Minucius Felix — Octavius 13
XIII. "And yet if there is desire of philosophizing, let whoever of you is so great imitate Socrates, the prince of wisdom, if he can. Of that man, as often as he was asked about heavenly things, the known reply is: 'what is above us is nothing to us.' Deservedly therefore from the oracle he earned the testimony of singular prudence. Which oracle he himself likewise perceived: that he was set over all for this reason, not that he had found out all things, but that he had learned that he knew nothing: so the height of prudence is confessed ignorance.
From this spring flowed the safe doubt of Arcesilas and much later of Carneades and of very many Academics in the highest questions, by which kind both the unlearned can philosophize cautiously and the learned gloriously. What? Is not the hesitation of Simonides the Melic to be admired by all and followed? Which Simonides, when he was asked by the tyrant Hiero what and of what sort he judged the gods to be, first sought a day for deliberation, on the next day prolonged it by two days, soon warned added as much again. Finally, when the tyrant inquired the causes of so great delay, he answered that for him, the slower the inquiry proceeded, the more obscure the truth became.
In my opinion also things that are doubtful, as they are, ought to be left, and, with so many and so great men deliberating, a sentence ought not to be carried rashly and boldly into either part, lest either anile superstition be introduced or all religion be destroyed."
Latin
XIII. "Quamquam si philosophandi libido est, Socraten, sapientiae principem, quisque vestrum tantus est, si potuerit, imitetur. Eius viri, quotiens de caelestibus rogabatur, nota responsio est: 'quod supra nos, nihil ad nos.' Merito ergo de oraculo testimonium meruit prudentiae singularis. Quod oraculum, idem ipse persensit, idcirco universis esse praepositum, non quod omnia comperisset, sed quod nihil se scire didicisset: ita confessae inperitiae summa prudentia est. Hoc fonte defluxit Arcesilae et multo post Carneadis et Academicorum plurimorum in summis quaestionibus tuta dubitatio, quo genere philosophari et caute indocti possunt et docti gloriose. Quid? Simonidis Melici nonne admiranda omnibus et sectanda cunctatio? Qui Simonides, cum de eo, quid et quales arbitraretur deos, ab Hierone tyranno quaereretur, primo deliberationi diem petiit, postridie biduum prorogavit, mox alterum tantum admonitus adiunxit. Postremo, cum causas tantae morae tyrannus inquireret, respondit ille 'quod sibi, quanto inquisitio tardior pergeret, tanto veritas fieret obscurior.' Mea quoque opinione quae sunt dubia, ut sunt, relinquenda sunt, nec, tot ac tantis viris deliberantibus, temere et audaciter in alteram partem ferenda sententia est, ne aut anilis inducatur superstitio aut omnis religio destruatur."