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 βSmall 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.
Similar quotes
Very often, I confess, the teller of dreams bores me. His dream could perhaps interest me if it were frankly worked on. But to hear a glorious tale of his insanity! I have not yet clarified, psychoanalytically, this boredom during the recital of other people's dreams. Perhaps I have retained the stiffness of a rationalist. I do not follow the tale of justified incoherence docilely. I always suspect that part of the stupidities being recounted are invented.
If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned.
The time has come to turn to God and reassert our trust in Him for the healing of America - our country is in need of and ready for a spiritual renewal.
I've been present at birth, and death is just as present and in equal balance. And I've been present at death, and birth is just as present, again in equal balance.
The problem that faces us is the problem of awakening. What we lack is not an ideology or doctrine that will save the world. What we lack is mindfulness of what we are, of what our situation really is. We need to wake up in order to rediscover our human sovereignty. We are riding a horse that is running out of control. The way of salvation is a new culture in which human beings are encouraged to rediscover their deepest nature.
Whoso will pray, he must fast and be clean, And fat his soul, and make his body lean.