A Guest Post, Sort of

Wednesday I was a little concerned for myself when, having circled several times within a used bookstore containing hundreds of books on every subject imaginable, I felt attachment for not a single one therein, and wondered whether I must be gravely ill. My mother directed my attention to a corner I had not observed, and pulled a hefty volume from the shelf--The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. I was smitten at once.

Since this blog is diminishing in quality and there are times I want to take it out and shoot it, I thought I would instead post the words of someone much wiser, and articulate. Here are a few selections from the book. I'm a bit out of it this evening, and in typing them out I have made quite humorous errors. If any have slipped my notice, blame it on my delirium.

Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.

Call not that riches which may be lost; virtue is our true wealth, and the true reward of its possessor. It cannot be lost; it will not abandon us unless life itself first leaves us. As for property and material wealth, these you should ever hold in fear; full often they leave their possessor in ignominy, mocked at for having lost possession of them.

Where the descent is easier there the ascent is more difficult.

He who does not value life does not deserve it.

Every wrong shall be set right.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

Neither promise yourself things nor do things if you see that when deprived of them they will cause you material suffering.

The natural desire of good men is knowledge.

The words freeze in your mouth and you will make ice on Mount Etna.
     Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.

Love conquers everything.

Truth brings it here to pass that falsehood afflicts the lying tongues.

Whoso curbs not lustful desires puts himself on a level with the beasts.
     You can have neither a greater nor a less dominion than that over yourself.

In life beauty perishes and does not endure.

Obstacles cannot bend me.
Every obstacle yields to effort.
Not to leave the furrow.
He who fixes his course by a star changes not.