The Shortest Distance Between Two Points

This statement is attributed to Archimedes but the specific phrasing does not appear in his surviving works. The concept itself is a foundational theorem in Euclidean geometry, which predates Archimedes. His own mathematical writings deal extensively with curves and distances, but the pithy "shortest distance" formulation is more likely a later summarization of Euclid's geometry rather than a direct Archimedes quote.