Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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Leonardo da Vinci

1452 – 1519 CE

One of the most talented people to have ever lived, original “Renaissance Man,” father of paleontology, ichnology, and architecture; with a passionate curiosity and interest in everything, da Vinci’s genius extended to science, music, mathematics, engineering, painting, architecture, sculpture, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, history, and cartography. Remarkable inventor, mystical pantheist, vegetarian, savior of caged birds, and exemplar of journey-without-goal, he wrote over 5000 pages but didn’t finish one book, many of his commissions, even some of his greatest paintings, and claimed that one of the his most famous paintings, The Mona Lisa was incomplete.

Eras

Unlisted Sources

Notebooks (c. 1500)

Notebooks, c. 1500

Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci (14 quotes)

“Art lies in conceiving and designing, not in the actual execution.”

Chapters: 81. Journey Without Goal

Themes: Art

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“As a day well spent makes it sweet to sleep, so a life well used makes it sweet to die.”

Chapters: 39. Oneness

Themes: Death and Dying

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“If you are alone, you are all your own; with a companion you are half yourself.”

Chapters: 42. Children of the Way

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“The truth of things is a supreme food for fine intelligences, but not for wandering wits.”

Chapters: 41. Distilled Life

Themes: Truth

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“Whoever refers to authorities in disputing ideas works with his memory rather than with his reason.”

Chapters: 38. Fruit Over Flowers

Themes: Memory

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“Study the art of science… Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

Chapters: 39. Oneness

Themes: Art Science Oneness

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“People of accomplishment rarely sit back and let things happen to them. They go out and happen to things.”

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“In a discussion, when someone cites an authority, they are using memory, not reason.”

Themes: Memory Belief

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“Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind”

from Notebooks, c. 1500

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“Man has great power of speech, but the greater part thereof is empty and deceitful. Animals have little, but that little is useful and true. Better is a small and certain thing than a great falsehood.”

from Notebooks, c. 1500

Themes: Lies Deception

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“Experience will be my mistress.”

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“There shall be wings.”

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“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

Themes: Indra's Net

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“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”

from Notebooks (c. 1500)

Themes: Opinion

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Quotes about Leonardo da Vinci (1 quotes)

“Thirty generations passed, and Leonardo da Vinci—spirit made flesh—scratched across his drawings (drawings so beautiful that one catches one's breath with pain on seeing them)... Leonardo failed and died, but life carried on the dream.”

Will Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
Philosophy apostle and popularizer of history's lessons
from Fallen Leaves

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Comments (1)

  1. Shan Dao
    Shan Dao 6 years ago
    According to Will Durant, Leonardo's "Last Supper and Mona Lisa are the world's most famous paintings"