Small Things Become Noble

To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God's grace; and Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.

-- Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian Renaissance architect, musician, inventor, engineer, sculptor, and painter, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, XIX: Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations, Richter (1888)