Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.
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It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last.
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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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Ivy is of longevity.
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Science, knowledge of the things that are possible present and past; prescience, knowledge of the things which may come to pass.
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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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Feathers shall raise men towards the heaven even as they do the birds:-That is by the letters written by their quills.
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In order to prove whether the spirit can speak or not, it is necessary in the first place to define what a voice is and how it is generated.
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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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Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen. These two arts, you may call them both either poetry or painting, have here interchanged the senses by which they penetrate to the intellect.
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Human subtlety...will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.
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Many will there be who will give up work and labour and poverty of life and goods, and will go to live among wealth in splendid buildings, declaring that this is the way to make themselves acceptable to God.
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Just as eating against one’s will is injurious to health, so studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.1
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There will be many men who will move one against another, holding in their hands a cutting tool. But these will not do each other any injury beyond tiring each other; for, when one pushes forward the other will draw back. But woe to him who comes between them! For he will end by being cut in pieces.
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A bird makes the same use of wings and tail in the air as a swimmer does of his arms and legs in the water.
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All objects project their whole image and likeness, diffused and mingled in the whole of the atmosphere, opposite to themselves. The image of every point of the bodily surface, exists in every part of the atmosphere. All the images of the objects are in every part of the atmosphere.
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Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.
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Constancy does not begin, but is that which perseveres.
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Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory.
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Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in proportion as it is diminished.
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A shadow will appear dark in proportion to the brilliancy of the light surrounding it and conversely it will be less conspicuous where it is seen against a darker background.
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As a day well spent procures a happy sleep, so a life well employed procures a happy death.
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When you represent in your work shadows which you can only discern with difficulty, and of which you cannot distinguish the edges so that you apprehend them confusedly, you must not make them sharp or definite lest your work should have a wooden effect.
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All objects transmit their image to the eye in pyramids, and the nearer to the eye these pyramids are intersected the smaller will the image appear of the objects which cause them.