Da Vinci was as great a mechanic and inventor as were Newton and his friends. Yet a glance at his notebooks shows us that what fascinated him about nature was its variety, its infinite adaptability, the fitness and the individuality of all its parts. By contrast what made astronomy a pleasure to Newton was its unity, its singleness, its model of a nature in which the diversified parts were mere disguises for the same blank atoms.

Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding

To me the most interesting thing about man is that he is an animal who practices art and science and in every known society practices both together.

All science is the search for unity in hidden likenesses.

The symbol and the metaphor are as necessary to science as to poetry.

In the moment of appreciation we live again the moment when the creator saw and held the hidden likeness.

Dissent is the mark of freedom.