Leonardo da Vinci

“The first object of the painter is to make a flat plane appear as a body in relief and projecting from that plane”

“Poor is the man who desires a lot”

“Things severed shall be united and shall acquire of themselves such virtue that they shall restore to men their lost memory: - That is the papyrus sheets, which are formed out of several strips and preserve the memory of the thoughts and deeds of men.”

“The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself.”

“Oh! Speculators on things, boast not of knowing the things that nature ordinarily brings about; but rejoice if you know the end of those things which you yourself device.”

“The mind of a painter should be like a mirror which is filled with as many images as there are things placed before him.”

“Painting is concerned with the ten things you can see: these are darkness and brightness, substance and color, form and place, remoteness and nearness, movement and rest.”

“Nature alone is the master of true genius.”

“Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.”

“The young man should first learn perspective, then the proportions of objects. Next, copy work after the hand of a good master, to gain the habit of drawing parts of the body well; and then to work from nature, to confirm the lessons learned.”

“One day the world will look upon research upon animals as it now looks upon research on human beings.”

“I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand.”

“Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.”

“Slender certainty is better than portentous falsehood.”

“Especially learn how to see.”

“The 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.”

“You should often amuse yourself when you take a walk for recreation, in watching and taking note of the attitudes and actions of men as they talk and dispute, or laugh or come to blows with one another... noting these down with rapid strokes, in a little pocket-book which you ought always to carry with you.”

“Water is the driving force of all nature.”

“One can have no more mastery over the environment, than one has over himself.”

“No one should ever imitate the style of another because, with regard to art, he will be called a nephew and not a child of nature.”

“As regards this vice, we read that the peacock is more guilty of it than any other animal. For it is always contemplating the beauty of its tail, which it spreads in the form of a wheel, and by its cries attracts to itself the gaze of the creatures that surround it. And this is the last vice to be conquered.”

“Just as iron rusts from disuse, and stagnant water putrefies, or when cold turns to ice, so our intellect wastes unless it is kept in use.”

“Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.”

“Those who, in debate, appeal to their qualifications, argue from memory, not from understanding.”

“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.”

“Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.”

“Being engulfed in practice without delicate knowledge related to it, is in many ways like entering a ship without knowing where it is headed.”

“Here is a thing which the more you fear and avoid it the nearer you approach to it, and this is misery; the more you flee from it the more miserable and restless you will become.”

“We are deceived by promises and time disappoints us.”

“Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.”

“We ought not to desire the impossible.”

“All the bystanders at an event worthy of note adopt various gestures of admiration when contemplating the occurrence.”

“The part always has a tendency to reunite with its whole in order to escape from its imperfection.”

“Avoid the precepts of those thinkers whose reasoning is not confirmed by experience.”

“If you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting.”

“Happy will they be who lend ear to the words of the dead.”

“Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.”

“I think it is no small attraction in a painter to be able to give a pleasing air to his figures, and whoever is not naturally possessed of this grace may acquire it by study, as opportunity offers in the following manner: be on the watch to take good parts of many beautiful faces of which the beautiful parts are established by general repute rather than by your own judgement, for you may deceive yourself by selecting faces that resemble your own, since it often seems that such similarities please us; ... so therefore choose the beautiful ones as I tell you and fix them in your mind.”

“life without love, is no life at all”

“The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.”

“He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.”

“Being willing is not enough. We must do.”

“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.”

“The knowledge of the past times and of the places of the earth is both an ornament and nutriment to the human mind.”

“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”

“The eye transmits its own image through the air to all the objects which face it, and also receives them on its own surface, whence the "sensus communis" takes them and considers them.”

“There is nothing that deceives us more than our own judgment when used to give an opinion on our own works. It is sound in judging the work of our enemies but not that of our friends, for hate and love are two of the most powerfully motivating factors found among living things.”

“Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.”

“average human “looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fragrance, and talks without thinking.”

“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.”