Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

For, verily, great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it, you will be able to love it only little or not at all.

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.

A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements.

If the thing loved is base, the lover becomes base.

Perspective is a most subtle discovery in mathematical studies, for by means of lines it causes to appear distant that which is near, and large that which is small.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

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.

It should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which...you may find really marvellous ideas.

He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.

We must doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, but how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and the soul.

Men wrongly lament the flight of time, blaming it for being too swift; they do not perceive that its passage is sufficiently long, but a good memory, which nature has given to us, causes things long past to seem present.

Perspective is the rein and rudder of painting.

O Time with your teethy years! You swallow up all things little by little in a slow-motion, wrinkling process of dying.

Of the original phenomena, light is the most enthralling.

Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, labor in vain.

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.

Men and words are ready made, and you, O Painter, if you do not know how to make your figures move, are like an orator who knows not how to use his words.

The lover is moved by the thing loved, as the sense is by that which perceives, and it unites with it and they become one and the same thing... when the lover is united with the beloved it finds rest there; when the burden is laid down there it finds rest.

Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age.

It is a far worthier thing to read by the light of experience than to adorn oneself with the labors of others.

Make your faces so that they do not all have the same expression, as one sees with most painters, but give them different expression, according to age, complexion, and good or bad character.

The color of the object illuminated partakes of the color of that which illuminates it.

All our knowledge is the offspring of our perceptions.

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

I'm not contented to capture the world. I want to change it.

No human investigation can be called real science if it cannot be demonstrated mathematically.

An arch consists of two weaknesses which, leaning one against the other, make a strength.

Just as iron rusts from disuse... even so does inaction spoil the intellect.

Our life is made by the death of others.

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

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Experiment is the sole interpreter of the artifices of Nature.

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.

A day will come in which men will look upon an animal's murder the same way they look today upon a man's murder.

The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of colour at long distances.

The knowledge of all things is possible

It reflects no great honor on a painter to be able to execute only one thing well -- such as a head, an academy figure, or draperies, animals, landscapes, or the like -- in other words, confining himself to some particular object of study. This is so because there is scarcely a person so devoid of genius as to fail of success if he applies himself earnestly to one branch of study and practices it continually.

Ogni nostra cognitione prīcipia da sentimēti.All our knowledge has its origin in our preceptions.

Beauty perishes in life, but is immortal in art.

If on your own or by the criticism of others you discover error in your work, correct it then and there; otherwise in exposing your work to the public, you will expose your error also.

The motions of men must be such as suggest their dignity or their baseness.

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.

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

Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.

O time, swift robber of all created things, how many kings, how many nations hast thou undone, and how many changes of states and of various events have happened since the wondrous forms of this fish perished here in this cavernous and winding recess. Now destroyed by time thou liest patiently in this confined space with bones stripped and bare; serving as a support and prop for the superimposed mountain.

Love, Fear, and Esteem, - Write these on three stones.

Poor is the man who desires a lot

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer.

He who in reasoning cites authority is making use of his memory rather than of his intellect.

In time and with water, everything changes.

O mighty and once living instrument of formative nature. Incapable of availing thyself of thy vast strength thou hast to abandon a life of stillness and to obey the law which God and time gave to procreative nature.

Demetrius was wont to say that there was no difference between the words and speech of the unskilled and ignorant and the sounds and rumblings caused by the stomach being full of superfluous wind. This he said, not without reason, for, as he held, it did not in the least matter from what part of them the voice emanated, whether from the lower parts or the mouth, since the one and the other were of equal worth and importance.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

There is no higher or lower knowledge, but one only, flowing out of experimentation.

Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work least, for they are thinking out inventions.

Perspective is to painting what the bridle is to the horse, the rudder to a ship.

Very great charm of shadow and light is to be found in the faces of those who sit in the doors of dark houses. The eye of the spectator sees that part of the face which is in shadow lost in the darkness of the house, and that part of the face which is lit draws its brilliancy from the splendour of the sky. From this intensification of light and shade the face gains greatly in relief and beauty by showing the subtlest shadows in the light part and the subtlest lights in the dark part.

Savage is he who saves himself.