The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was an Italian painter, engineer and anatomist, author of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. He left some seven thousand notebook pages written in mirror script, filled with machine designs, anatomical studies and observations on light and water. Very few of his projects were finished in his lifetime.
About this theme: Wisdom
In the Western tradition wisdom is almost always defined by what it is not. Socrates is famous for claiming to know that he knew nothing; that was not modesty but method. Knowledge is a set of facts, wisdom is knowing what to do with them — and, more often, knowing when there are not enough of them.
More by Leonardo da Vinci
More on Wisdom
- Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small.— Lao Tzu
- An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.— Benjamin Franklin
- Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.— Arthur Schopenhauer
- He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.— Lao Tzu
- Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.— Baruch Spinoza