“The sun gives spirit and life to plants and the earth nourishes them with moisture.”

— Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), VIII Botany for Painters and Elements of Landscape Painting

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Leonardo Da Vinci 363

Italian Renaissance polymath 1452–1519

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

“Wilt Thou not visit me?
The plant beside me feels Thy gentle dew;
And every blade of grass I see,
From Thy deep earth its quickening moisture drew.”

Jones Very (1813–1880) American poet and essayist

From The Prayer

“In many cases one and the same thing is attracted by two strong forces, namely Necessity and Potency. Water falls in rain; the earth absorbs it from the necessity for moisture; and the sun evaporates it, not from necessity, but by its power.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

“If the sun were to stop shining, the flow of our life would stop. The sun is our second heart, our heart outside of our body. It gives all life on Earth the warmth necessary for existence.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

The Sun My Heart (1996)
Context: We have to remember that our body is not limited to what lies within the boundary of our skin. Our body is much more immense. We know that if our heart stops beating, the flow of our life will stop, but we do not take the time to notice the many things outside of our bodies that are equally essential for our survival. If the ozone layer around our Earth were to disappear for even an instant, we would die. If the sun were to stop shining, the flow of our life would stop. The sun is our second heart, our heart outside of our body. It gives all life on Earth the warmth necessary for existence. Plants live thanks to the sun. Their leaves absorb the sun's energy, along with carbon dioxide from the air, to produce food for the tree, the flower, the plankton. And thanks to plants, we and other animals can live. All of us—people, animals, plants, and minerals—"consume" the sun, directly and indirectly. We cannot begin to describe all the effects of the sun, that great heart outside of our body.
When we look at green vegetables, we should know that it is the sun that is green and not just the vegetables. The green color in the leaves of the vegetables is due to the presence of the sun. Without the sun, no living being could survive. Without sun, water, air, and soil, there would be no vegetables. The vegetables are the coming-together of many conditions near and far.

“The sun was a molten coin burning a circle in the low-hanging overcast, surrounded by a fairy-ring of moisture.”

Stephen King book It

It (1986)

“You like the Earth, Man, and you — pawing the ground — think of God, the little nursling will recognize you, and will think of you with love, because God lives even in it also. Give nourishment to the developing little creatures, either to plant or to animal, and it will develop for your sweet amazement. Give food for the wild animal starving, and it will slick to you.”

Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka (1853–1919) painter from Hungary

The Authority

“Nothing ceases to exist – there is no example of this in nature... There is an entire mass of things that cannot rationally explained. There are newborn thoughts that have not yet found form. How foolish to deny the existence of the soul. After all, that a life has begun, that cannot be denied. It is necessary to believe in immortality, insofar as it can be demonstrated that the atoms of life or the spirit of life must continue to exist after the body’s death. But of what does it exist, this characteristic of holding a body together, causing matter to change and develop, this spirit of life? I felt it as a sensual delight that I should become one with – become this earth which is forever radiated by the sun in such a constant ferment and which lives – lives – and which will grow plants from my decaying body – trees and flowers – and the sun will warm them and I will exist in them – and nothing will perish – and that is eternity.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

T 2760 (January 1892); as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 119
1880 - 1895

“To withhold from living is to die … the more you give of yourself to life the more life nourishes you.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

March 6, 1936 Fire
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

“He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower,-
Alike they’re needful to the flower;
And joys and tears alike are sent
To give the soul fit nourishment.
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father! thy will, not mine, be done.”

Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (1805–1848) English poet, hymnwriter

"He sendeth Sun, he sendeth Shower", reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 282; and in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Our planet, the Earth, is, as far as we know, unique in the universe. It contains life. Even in its most barren stretches, there are animals. Around the equator, where those two essentials for life, sunshine and moisture, are most abundant, great forests grow. And here plants and animals proliferate in such numbers that we still have not even named all the different species. Here, animals and plants, insects and birds, mammals and man live together in intimate and complex communities, each dependent on one another. Two thirds of the surface of this unique planet are covered by water, and it was here indeed that life began. From the oceans, it has spread even to the summits of the highest mountains as animals and plants have responded to the changing face of the Earth.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Opening narration
The Living Planet (1984)

“The sun gives spirit and life to plants and the earth nourishes them with moisture.”

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Leonardo Da Vinci 363

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