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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You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.
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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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One's thoughts turn towards Hope.
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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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Sculptured figures which appear in motion, will, in their standing position, actually look as if they were falling forward.
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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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I have seen motions of the air so furious that they have carried, mixed up in their course, the largest trees of the forest and whole roofs of great palaces, and I have seen the same fury bore a hole with a whirling movement digging out a gravel pit, and carrying gravel, sand and water more than half a mile through the air.
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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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Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude. Pharisees - that is to say, friars.
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Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.
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Truth was the only daughter of Time.
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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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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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Ivy is of longevity.
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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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An infinite number of men will sell publicly and unhindered things of the very highest price, without leave from the Master of it; while it never was theirs nor in their power; and human justice will not prevent it.
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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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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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The ball of snow when, as it rolls, it descends from the snowy mountains, increases in size as it falls.
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He who does not value life does not deserve it.
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Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.
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Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light.
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Light is the chaser away of darkness. Shade is the obstruction of light. Primary light is that which falls on objects and causes light and shade. And derived lights are those portions of a body which are illuminated by the primary light. A primary shadow is that side of a body on which the light cannot fall.