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Leonardo da Vinci
(15 Apr 1452 - 2 May 1519)
Italian painter, sculptor, draftsman, physicist, engineer and architect whose notebooks have preserved his inventive ideas, understanding of scientific enquiry, and insights into constructing forts and war machines. DaVinci is well-known for his paintings such as Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
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Leonardo da Vinci Quotes on Mountain (6 quotes)
>> Click for 78 Science Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci
>> Click for Leonardo da Vinci Quotes on | Nature |
>> Click for 78 Science Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci
>> Click for Leonardo da Vinci Quotes on | Nature |
... we might say that the earth has a spirit of growth; that its flesh is the soil, its bones the arrangement and connection of the rocks of which the mountains are composed, its cartilage the tufa, and its blood the springs of water.
— Leonardo da Vinci
…...
A bird maintains itself in the air by imperceptible balancing, when near to the mountains or lofty ocean crags; it does this by means of the curves of the winds which as they strike against these projections, being forced to preserve their first impetus bend their straight course towards the sky with divers revolutions, at the beginning of which the birds come to a stop with their wings open, receiving underneath themselves the continual buffetings of the reflex courses of the winds.
— Leonardo da Vinci
'Flight', in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, trans. E. MacCurdy (1938), Vol. 1, 471.
In the mountains of Parma and Piacenza, multitudes of shells and corals filled with worm-holes may be seen still adhering to the rocks, and when I was making the great horse at Milan a large sack of those which had been found in these parts was brought to my workshop by some peasants... The red stone of the mountains of Verona is found with shells all intermingled, which have become part of this stone... And if you should say that these shells have been and still constantly are being created in such places as these by the nature of the locality or by potency of the heavens in these spots, such an opinion cannot exist in brains possessed of any extensive powers of reasoning because the years of their growth are numbered upon the outer coverings of their shells; and both small and large ones may be seen; and these would not have grown without feeding, or fed without movement, and here [embedded in rock] they would not have been able to move... The peaks of the Apennines once stood up in a sea, in the form of islands surrounded by salt water... and above the plains of Italy where flocks of birds are flying today, fishes were once moving in large shoals.
— Leonardo da Vinci
'Physical Geography', in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, trans. E. MacCurdy (1938), Vol. 1, 355-6, 359.
Sufficient for us is the testimony of things produced in the salt waters and now found again in the high mountains, sometimes far from the sea.
— Leonardo da Vinci
Manuscript held by the Earl of Leicester, 31 a [R984]. In Edward McCurdy (ed.), Leonardo da Vinci's note-books: arranged and rendered into English with introductions (1908), 109.
What induces you, oh man, to depart from your home in town, to leave parents and friends, and go to the countryside over mountains and valleys, if it is not for the beauty of the world of nature?
— Leonardo da Vinci
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Why are the bones of great fishes, and oysters and corals and various other shells and sea-snails, found on the high tops of mountains that border the sea, in the same way in which they are found in the depths of the sea?
— Leonardo da Vinci
'Physical Geography', in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, trans. E. MacCurdy (1938), Vol. 1, 361.
See also:
- 15 Apr - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of da Vinci's birth.
- The Science of Leonardo: Inside the Mind of the Great Genius of the Renaissance, by Fritjof Capra. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for Leonardo da Vinci.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
