Vitality and beauty are gifts of Nature for those who live according to its laws.
Man and the animals are merely a passage and channel for food, a tomb for other animals, a haven for the dead, giving life by the death of others, a coffer full of corruption.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the interconnectedness of life and death within the ecosystem, emphasizing the cycle of life where living beings are both consumers and consumed.
Leonardo Da Vinci's quote reveals a profound observation about the natural world and humanity's place within it. It explains how every living being serves as a link in a larger chain of existence, where life is sustained by the death of others. This perspective challenges us to consider the ethical implications of our role as consumers and our impact on the environment, highlighting the inherent cycles of life and decay that define our ecosystem.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on sustainability, this quote can highlight the importance of understanding our consumption habits.
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.
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.
The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
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.
It is a far worthier thing to read by the light of experience than to adorn oneself with the labors of others.
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And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but overacuteness of the senses?
The dog is the most faithful of animals and would be much esteemed were it not so common. Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts the commonest.
Some find Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran’s poetry preachy and moralizing, but I find it plenty enlightening—it’s hard to object to the melodic, cosmic of mysticism of a line like ‘That which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.’