quote · Source-linked selection
Fire destroys falsehood,—that is to say, sophistry,—and rehabilitates truth, scattering the darkness. Fire must be represented as the consumer of all sophistry and the revealer of truth, because it is light and scatters darkness which conceals all essences. Fire destroys all sophistry,—that is to say, deceit,—and preserves truth alone, which is gold. Truth cannot be concealed in the end, dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is frustrated before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. There is nothing hidden under the sun. Fire must represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies, and the mask is for sophistry and lies, which conceal truth.
Fire destroys falsehood,—that is to say, sophistry,—and rehabilitates truth, scattering the darkness. Fire must be represented as the consumer of all sophistry and the revealer of truth, because it is light and scatters darkness which conceals all essences. Fire destroys all sophistry,—that is to say, deceit,—and preserves truth alone, which is gold. Truth cannot be concealed in the end, dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is frustrated before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. There is nothing hidden under the sun. Fire must represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies, and the mask is for sophistry and lies, which conceal truth.
Approximate author period: c. 1486 AD · medieval
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- Author or tradition
- Leonardo da Vinci
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1486 AD · medieval
author lifetime midpoint (1452–1519); not quotation composition date
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Thoughts on Art and Life (1906 English edition) (1906 AD)
Thoughts on Life, complete printed unit 112; Maurice Baring translation; Boston: The Merrymount Press,1906
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
The voice behind the words.
Represented by the complete source-numbered selections in Thoughts on Art and Life, Maurice Baring’s1906English translation, edited by Lewis Einstein. The catalogue records1452–1519; the historical collection is a selection from notebooks, not a continuous book composed by Leonardo or independent authentication of every attributed passage.
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