The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Part 99

1174.

The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has pa.s.sed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present.

Life if well spent, is long.

1175.

Just as food eaten without caring for it is turned into loathsome nourishment, so study without a taste for it spoils memory, by retaining nothing which it has taken in.

1176.

Just as eating against one's will is injurious to health, so study without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.

1177.

On Mount Etna the words freeze in your mouth and you may make ice of them.[Footnote 2: There is no clue to explain this strange sentence.]

Just as iron rusts unless it is used, and water putrifies or, in cold, turns to ice, so our intellect spoils unless it is kept in use.

You do ill if you praise, and still worse if you reprove in a matter you do not understand.

When Fortune comes, seize her in front with a sure hand, because behind she is bald.

1178.

It seems to me that men of coa.r.s.e and clumsy habits and of small knowledge do not deserve such fine instruments nor so great a variety of natural mechanism as men of speculation and of great knowledge; but merely a sack in which their food may be stowed and whence it may issue, since they cannot be judged to be any thing else than vehicles for food; for it seems to me they have nothing about them of the human species but the voice and the figure, and for all the rest are much below beasts.

1179.

Some there are who are nothing else than a pa.s.sage for food and augmentors of excrement and fillers of privies, because through them no other things in the world, nor any good effects are produced, since nothing but full privies results from them.

On foolishness and ignorance (1180-1182).

1180.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

1181.

Folly is the shield of shame, as unreadiness is that of poverty glorified.

1182.

Blind ignorance misleads us thus and delights with the results of lascivious joys.

Because it does not know the true light. Because it does not know what is the true light.

Vain splendour takes from us the power of being .... behold! for its vain splendour we go into the fire, thus blind ignorance does mislead us. That is, blind ignorance so misleads us that ...

O! wretched mortals, open your eyes.

On riches (1183-1187).

1183.

That is not riches, which may be lost; virtue is our true good and the true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost; that never deserts us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external riches, hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt, and mocked at for having lost them.

1184.

Every man wishes to make money to give it to the doctors, destroyers of life; they then ought to be rich. [Footnote 2: Compare No. 856.]

Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.

1185.

He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.

1186.

He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.

1187.

That man is of supreme folly who always wants for fear of wanting; and his life flies away while he is still hoping to enjoy the good things which he has with extreme labour acquired.

Rules of Life (1188-1202).

1188.

If you governed your body by the rules of virtue you would not walk on all fours in this world.

You grow in reputation like bread in the hands of a child.

[Footnote: The first sentence is obscure. Compare Nos. 825, 826.]

1189.

Savage he is who saves himself.

1190.

We ought not to desire the impossible. [Footnote: The writing of this note, which is exceedingly minute, is reproduced in facsimile on Pl. XLI No. 5 above the first diagram.

1191.

Ask counsel of him who rules himself well.

Justice requires power, insight, and will; and it resembles the queen-bee.

He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.