Vitality and beauty are gifts of Nature for those who live according to its laws.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements, but not with a corresponding degree of strength, though it is deficient only in the power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote explores the relationship between nature and human invention, highlighting how man can create mechanisms that imitate nature but lack the essence or life force.
Leonardo Da Vinci's quote reflects on the intricacies of nature, particularly in how a bird functions as a living instrument governed by mathematical laws. He suggests that while humans can create machines that mimic the movements of birds, these creations are devoid of life. The essence of the bird, which could be equated with vitality and equilibrium, cannot be replicated solely through mechanical prowess; rather, it relies on the life force found in living beings. This perspective underscores a deeper philosophical inquiry into the limits of human innovation compared to nature's complexity.
Themes
NatureInventionImitationLifeMathematics
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the principles of flight, this quote can be used to illustrate the balance between nature and technology.
More from Leonardo Da Vinci
All quotes →Small rooms or dwellings set the mind in the right path, large ones cause it to go astray.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
Patience serves us against insults precisely as clothes do against the cold. For if you multiply your garments as the cold increases, that cold cannot hurt you; in the same way increase your patience under great offenses, and they cannot hurt your feelings.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
For, verily, great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it, you will be able to love it only little or not at all.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
It is a far worthier thing to read by the light of experience than to adorn oneself with the labors of others.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
Similar quotes
How can you do the right thing when you can't figure out what that is? When all you have before you are choices in various shades of wrong?
Neal ShustermanRead
People always talk about good time rock and roll, Chuck Berry or whatever, like this liberating force for feeling good. But what I need in my life is to be liberated into feeling bad. Not sad. I have plenty of sad. What I need is a place where I can spray anger in sparks like a gnarled piece of electrical cable. Just be mad at stuff and soak in the helplessness.
John DarnielleRead
Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception. To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion.
Bruce LeeRead
Being bodiless, God is nowhere, but as God He is everywhere. If there were a mountain, a place or any part of Creation where God was not, then He would be found to be in some way circumscribed. So He is everywhere and in everything. In what way is this so? Is He contained not by each part but by the whole? No, because then that would be a body. He embraces and encompasses everything, and is Himself everywhere and also above everything, worshipped by true worshippers in His Spirit and Truth.
Gregory PalamasRead
There have been low moments before, but Christianity is an incredibly adaptable organism, using different parts of its repertoire to mutate into new ecological niches, yet preserving intact its story of grace, of love improbably triumphant.
Francis SpuffordRead
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Mark TwainRead