Old Wisdom New

     The natural desire of good men is knowledge.
     I know that many will call this a useless work, and they will be those of whom Demetrius said that he took no more account of the wind that produced the words in their mouths than that of the wind that comes out of their hinder parts: men whose only desire is for material riches and luxury and who are entirely destitute of the desire of wisdom, the sustenance and the only true riches of the soul. For as the soul is more worthy than the body so much are the soul's riches more worthy than those of the body. And often when I see one of these men take this work in hand I wonder whether he will not put it to his nose like the ape and ask me whether it is something to eat.
— The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Proem, C.A. 119 v.a, Edward  MacCurdy (arranger and tr.), p. 58.

     Two weaknesses leaning together create a strength. Therefore the half of the world leaning against the other half becomes firm.
— Ibid., C.A. 244 v.a, p.65.

     While I thought I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
— Ibid., C.A. 252 r.a, p. 65.

     Every part of an element separated from its mass desires to return to it by the shortest way.
— Ibid., C.A. 273 r.b, p. 65.

     One ought not to desire the impossible.
— Ibid., from "Of What Force Is," E. 31 v., p. 69.

     I have so many words in my mother-tongue that I ought rather to complain of the lack of a right understanding of things, than of a lack of words with which fully to express the conception that is in my mind.
— Ibid., from "Personalia," Quaderni II 16 r., p. 1130.

     I have wasted my hours.
— Leonardo da Vinci, Ibid., Quaderni III 12 v., p. 1130.