Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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There will be many who will eagerly and with great care and solicitude follow up a thing, which, if they only knew its malignity, would always terrify them. Of those men, who, the older they grow, the more avaricious they become, whereas, having but little time to stay, they should become more liberal.
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That man is of supreme folly who always wants for fear of wanting; and his life flies away while he is still hoping to enjoy the good things which he has with extreme labour acquired.
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Truth was the only daughter of Time.
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The properties of the air are such that it may become condensed or rarefied.
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Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature.
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Fire may be represented as the destroyer of all sophistry, and as the image and demonstration of truth; because it is light and drives out darkness which conceals all essences or subtle things.
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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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To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.
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Painting embraces and contains within itself all the things which nature produces or which results from the fortuitous actions of men... he is but a poor master who makes only a single figure well.
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He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.
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The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
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The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.
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A dark object seen against a bright background will appear smaller than it is. A light object will look larger when it is seen against a background darker than itself.
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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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A shadow may be infinitely dark, and also of infinite degrees of absence of darkness. The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.
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The part always has a tendency to reunite with its whole in order to escape from its imperfection.
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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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If the Lord - who is the light of all things - vouchsafe to enlighten me, I will treat of Light; wherefore I will divide the present work into 3 Parts... Linear Perspective, The Perspective of Colour, The Perspective of Disappearance.
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You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.
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Patience serves us against insults precisely as clothes do against the cold. For if you multiply your garments as the cold increases, that cold cannot hurt you; in the same way increase your patience under great offences, and they cannot hurt your feelings.
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He who walks straight rarely falls.
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Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude. Pharisees - that is to say, friars.
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When that which loves is united to the thing beloved it can rest there; when the burden is laid down it finds rest there. There will be eternal fame also for the inhabitants of that town, constructed and enlarged by him.
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Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.