"Many have made a trade of delusions..." - Quote by Leonardo Da Vinci

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

“Make an effort to collect the good features from many beautiful faces.”

“He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

“Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth,And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,With windlasses and with assays of bias,By indirections find directions out.”

“I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.”

“I don't doubt that every prince would like to be both; but since it is hard to accomodate these qualities, if you have to make a choice, to be feared is much safer than to be loved. For it is a good general rule about men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain....[love] is a link of obligation which men, because they are rotten, will break anything they think doing so serves their advantage; but fear involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape.”

“I am very conscious that I am not wise at all.”

“The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes.”

“To constrain the brute force of the people, the European governments deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life.”