Moderation checks all the vices. The ermine will die rather than besmirch itself.
OF FORESIGHT.
The cock does not crow till it has thrice flapped its wings; the parrot in moving among boughs never puts its feet excepting where it has first put its beak. Vows are not made till Hope is dead.
Motion tends towards the centre of gravity.
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.