Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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Of several luminous bodies of equal size and brilliancy and at an equal distance, that will look the largest which is surrounded by the darkest background.
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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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Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature.
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Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.
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Observe the light and consider its beauty. Blink your eye and look at it. That which you see was not there at first, and that which was there is there no more.
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You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.
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He who walks straight rarely falls.
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O Time! consumer of all things; O envious age! thou dost destroy all things and devour all things with the relentless teeth of years, little by little in a slow death. Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the withered wrinkles made in her face by old age, wept and wondered why she had twice been carried away.
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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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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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That which has no limitations, has no form. The limitations of two conterminous bodies are interchangeably the surface of each. All the surfaces of a body are not parts of that body.
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Represent your figures in such action as may be fitted to express what purpose is in the mind of each; otherwise your art will not be admirable.
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Ivy is of longevity.
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Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.
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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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The variety of colour in objects cannot be discerned at a great distance, excepting in those parts which are directly lighted up by the solar rays.
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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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The ball of snow when, as it rolls, it descends from the snowy mountains, increases in size as it falls.
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There is no certainty in sciences where one of the mathematical sciences cannot be applied, or which are not in relation with these mathematics.
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That is not riches, which may be lost; virtue is our true good and the true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost; that never deserts us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external riches, hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt, and mocked at for having lost them.
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When the sun appears which dispels darkness in general, you put out the light which dispelled it for you in particular for your need and convenience.
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To preserve Nature's chiefest boon, that is freedom, I can find means of offence and defence, when it is assailed by ambitious tyrants, and first I will speak of the situation of the walls, and also I shall show how communities can maintain their good and just Lords.
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He who does not value life does not deserve it.
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Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love.