Quick answer“Water is the driving force of all nature.” is a famous quote by Leonardo da Vinci. It comes from Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Paris Manuscript K, fol. 2r). It is widely quoted on science and wisdom. Leonardo da Vinci, who filled notebooks with studies of currents and eddies, called water the driving force of all nature.
Leonardo da Vinci, who filled notebooks with studies of currents and eddies, called water the driving force of all nature. The line comes from his notebooks, where water runs through his art, his engineering and his science alike.
Origin: A line from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks (Paris Manuscript K, fol. 2r), in Italian: 'L'acqua è 'l vetturale della natura.' Literally that reads 'Water is the carrier of nature'; 'Water is the driving force of all nature' is the freer English rendering in general use, used for example as the epigraph to a 2009 scholarly volume on Leonardo's water studies. Leonardo filled his notebooks with studies of currents, eddies and floods.
Translated from Italian.
Key facts
| Quote | “Water is the driving force of all nature.” |
|---|---|
| Author | Leonardo da Vinci |
| Source | Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Paris Manuscript K, fol. 2r) |
| Themes | science, wisdom |
| Language | Italian (translation) |
| Original | “L'acqua è 'l vetturale della natura.” |
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