Post date: Jul 23, 2014 6:36:04 PM
Leonardo da Vinci on concerns that he would contribute little to human understanding.
“Seeing that I cannot choose a particularly useful or pleasant subject, since the men born before me have taken for themselves all the useful and necessary themes, I shall do the same as the poor man who arrives last at the fair, and being unable to choose what he wants, has to be content with what others have already seen and rejected because of its small worth. I will load my humble bags with the scored and disdained merchandise, rejected by may buyers, and go to distribute it not in the great cities, but in poor villages, receiving the price for what I have to offer” (1484-1500).
Original in Codex Atlantics, Ambrosiania Library, Milan and reproduced from citation in White, M. (2000). Leonardo: The first scientist. Little, Brown and Company, London, UK.