“Ask counsel of him who rules himself well.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Leonardo Da Vinci 363
Italian Renaissance polymath 1452–1519Related quotes

“On him does death lie heavily, who, but too well known to all, dies to himself unknown.”
Illi mors gravis incubat
Qui notus nimis omnibus
Ignotus moritur sibi
Illi mors gravis incubat
Qui notus nimis omnibus
Ignotus moritur sibi
Thyestes, lines 401-403; (Chorus).
Alternate translation: Death weighs on him who is known to all, but dies unknown to himself. (The Philisophical Life by James Miller).
Tragedies

Bk. III, ch. 11.
1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Letter to Peter the Great, the Czar of Russia, 2 July 1698, in Samuel McPherson Janney, The Life of William Penn (Philadelphia, 1852), p. 407

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 597.

“I ask, on this bondless land
Who rules over man's destiny?”
Changsha (1925)
Context: Alone I stand in the autumn cold
On the tip of Orange Island,
Xiang flowing northward;
I see a thousand hills crimsoned through
By their serried woods deep-dyed,
And a hundred barges vying
Over crystal blue waters.
Eagles cleave the air,
Fish glide under the shallow water;
Under freezing skies a million creatures contend in freedom.
Brooding over this immensity,
I ask, on this bondless land
Who rules over man's destiny?

No. 243 (8 December 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“Who himself cannot control
Why should he o'er others rule?”
Quem não é senhor de si
Porque o será de ninguém?
Farsa dos Físicos (1512?), tr. Aubrey F. G. Bell