Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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We ought not to desire the impossible.
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Fear arises sooner than anything else.
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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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Every instrument requires to be made by experience.
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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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The atmosphere is blue by reason of the darkness above it because black and white make blue.
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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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A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a baked one.
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It is ill to praise, and worse to reprimand in matters that you do not understand.
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The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.
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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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Fire destroys falsehood, that is sophistry, and restores truth, driving out darkness.
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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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Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.
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That which was at first bound, cast out and rent by many and various beaters will be respected and honoured, and its precepts will be listened to with reverence and love.
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He who offends others, does not secure himself.
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Such as harm is when it hurts me not, is good which avails me not.
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He who does not punish evil commands that it be done.
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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.