
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Statement to Pomponne de Bellievre, as told to Cardinal de Retz in 1651; Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz (1717) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3846/3846.txt
Variant: One never rises so high as when one does not know where one is going.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
A Comparison.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: The art of leadership (1935), p. 91; as cited in: William Sykes " Visions Of Hope: Leadership http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2012/08/leadership_2.php." Published on August 12, 2012.
“I am born into an environment — I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am.”
Science and Humanism (1951)
Context: I am born into an environment — I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am. This is my situation as yours, every single one of you. The fact that everyone always was in this same situation, and always will be, tells me nothing. Our burning question as to the whence and whither — all we can ourselves observe about it is the present environment. That is why we are eager to find out about it as much as we can. That is science, learning, knowledge; it is the true source of every spiritual endeavour of man. We try to find out as much as we can about the spatial and temporal surroundings of the place in which we find ourselves put by birth…
Ignorance of Death
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIII - Death
“He's the kind of man who was born to rise and rise: a human elevator.”
Source: The Stone Gods (2007), p.7
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 223
“There was so much going on, and so little he cared to know about!”
Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 11, “Apes” (p. 184)