Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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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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Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.
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Love, Fear, and Esteem, - Write these on three stones.
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Every instrument requires to be made by experience.
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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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Swimming upon water teaches men how birds do upon the air.
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Fear arises sooner than anything else.
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Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.
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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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The painter strives and competes with nature.
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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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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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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 atmosphere is blue by reason of the darkness above it because black and white make blue.
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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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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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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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I myself have proved it to be of no small use, when in bed in the dark, to recall in fancy the external details of forms previously studied, or other noteworthy things conceived by subtle speculation; and this is certainly an admirable exercise, and useful for impressing things on the memory.
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Wine is good, but water is preferable at table.
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It is ill to praise, and worse to reprimand in matters that you do not understand.
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Disgrace should be represented upside down, because all her deeds are contrary to God and tend to hell.
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A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a baked one.
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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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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.