Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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No impetus created by any movement whatever can be immediately consumed, but if it finds an object which has a great resistance it consumes itself in a reflex movement.
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Ask counsel of him who rules himself well.
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Every instrument requires to be made by experience.
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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.
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He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.
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Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
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Swimming upon water teaches men how birds do upon the air.
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You do ill if you praise, and still worse if you reprove in a matter you do not understand.
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Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.
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I ask how far away the eye can discern a non-luminous body, as, for instance, a mountain. It will be very plainly visible if the sun is behind it; and could be seen at a greater or less distance according to the sun's place in the sky.
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Wine is good, but water is preferable at table.
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I find that any luminous body when seen through a dense and thick mist diminishes in proportion to its distance from the eye. Thus it is with the sun by day, as well as the moon and the other eternal lights by night. And when the air is clear, these luminaries appear larger in proportion as they are farther from the eye.
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Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.
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If you transmit the rays of the sun through a hole in the shape of a star you will see a beautiful effect of perspective in the spot where the sun's rays fall.
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He who does not punish evil commands that it be done.
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The image of the sun where it falls appears as a thing which covers the person who attempts to cover it.
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Fear arises sooner than anything else.
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Experience, the interpreter between formative nature and the human race, teaches how that nature acts among mortals; and being constrained by necessity cannot act otherwise than as reason, which is its helm, requires her to act.
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The painter strives and competes with nature.
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The atmosphere is blue by reason of the darkness above it because black and white make blue.
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Here forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing … Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity - by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles...
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Any one who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory. Good culture is born of a good disposition; and since the cause is more to be praised than the effect, I will rather praise a good disposition without culture, than good culture without the disposition.
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A single and distinct luminous body causes stronger relief in the object than a diffused light; as may be seen by comparing one side of a landscape illuminated by the sun, and one overshadowed by clouds, and so illuminated only by the diffused light of the atmosphere.
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A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a baked one.