Leonardo da Vinci

1452-1519

Italian painter, engineer, musician, and scientist

 

Leonardo da Vinci quotes:

Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.

Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.

He turns not back who is bound to a star.

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.

Experience never errs; what alone may err is our judgment, which predicts effects that cannot be produced by our experiments.

Nature is full of finite causes that have never occurred in experience.

Noi tutti siamo esiliati entro lo cornici di uno strano quadro. Chi sa questo, viva da grande, Gli altri sono insetti. Translation: We are all exiles within the frames of a strange picture. Who knows this, alive, great, The others are insects.

Anyone who in a discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.

While I thought I was leaning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Nature never breaks its own laws.

Small rooms or dwellings disciplines the mind, large ones weakens it.

Ask counsel of him who governs himself well.

He who never puts his trust in any man will never be deceived.

Necessity is the mistress and guardian of nature. Necessity is the theme and artificer of nature., the bridle, and eternal law.

Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labor.

Intellectual passions drives or sensuality.

I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men
such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of
men.

Those who are enamoured of practice without science are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass and never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory.

Our life is made by the death of others.

Who sows virtue reaps honor.

Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.

The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.

I have proved in my own case that it is of no small benefit on finding oneself in bed in the dark to go over again in the imagination the main outlines of the forms previously studied, or of other noteworthy things conceived by ingenious speculation; and this exercise is entirely to be commended, and it is useful in fixing things in the memory.

Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.

A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature
are dark except where exposed by the light.

The Sun does not move.

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.

As you cannot do what you want,
Want what you can do.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

The knowledge of all things is possible.

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

One has no right to love or hate anything if one has not acquired a thorough knowledge of its nature..great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you know it but little you will be able to love it only a little or not at all.

He who thinks little errs much…

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

All sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, the mother of all Knowledge.

He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end

My body will not be a tomb for other creatures.

Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.

A poet knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.

He who wishes to be rich within a day, will be hanged within a year.

Time stays long enough for those who use it.

If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.

The organ of perception acts more readily than judgment.

While human ingenuity may devise various inventions to the same ends, it will never devise anything more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than nature does, because in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.

The moment is timeless.

Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.

The human bird shall take his first flight,filling the words with amazement,all writings with his fame,and bringing eternal glory to those whose nest whence he sprang.

What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art.

Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes.

Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve.

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.

The mind that engages in subjects of too great variety becomes confused and weakened.

Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.

Water is the driving force in nature.

The acquisition of knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.

Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy— on experience, the mistress of their Masters.

Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.

A well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.

All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.

O Time! consumer of all things; O envious age! thou dost destroy all things and devour all things with the relentless teeth of years, little by little in a slow death.

A point is not part of a line.

Many will think they may reasonably blame me by alleging that my proofs are opposed to the authority of certain men held in the highest reverence by their inexperienced judgments; not considering that my works are the issue of pure and simple experience, who is the one true mistress. These rules are sufficient to enable you to know the true from the false— and this aids men to look only for things that are possible and with due moderation— and not to wrap yourself in ignorance, a thing which can have no good result, so that in despair you would give yourself up to melancholy.

Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or past; prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to pass, though but slowly.

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

Truth was the only daughter of Time.

Shadow is not the absence of light, merely the obstruction of the luminous rays by an opaque body.

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.

All objects transmit their image to the eye in pyramids, and the nearer to the eye these pyramids are intersected the smaller will the image appear of the objects which cause them.

To know and to will are two operations of the human mind. Discerning, judging, deliberating are acts of the human mind.

A picture or representation of human figures, ought to be done in such a way as that the spectator may easily recognise, by means of their attitudes, the purpose in their minds.

The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united with them.

Please feel free to add your favorite Leonardo da Vinci quote in the comments.

 

Image source: Leonardo Da Vinci Postage Stamps at Wisdomportal.com