“Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory.”

— Leonardo Da Vinci

Variant translations:
Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.
As quoted in The Book of Unusual Quotations (1957) by Rudolf Flesch, p. 12
Any one who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

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Leonardo Da Vinci 363

Italian Renaissance polymath 1452–1519

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