Three Things Cannot Be Long Hidden

This saying does not appear verbatim in the Pali Canon. Its closest canonical root is in the Aṅguttara Nikāya (Book of the Threes), where the Buddha distinguishes three things practiced secretly — the ways of women, Brahmin chants, and wrong views — from three things that "shine openly for all to see": the moon, the sun, and the Dhamma-Vinaya (the Buddha's teaching and discipline). In the original, the point is that the Buddha's teaching is open and non-secretive — not a general claim that truth cannot be hidden. The popular paraphrase inverts and simplifies the original meaning.