Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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The body which is nearest to the light casts the largest shadow, and why? If an object placed in front of a single light is very close to it you will see that it casts a very large shadow on the opposite wall, and the farther you remove the object from the light the smaller will the image of the shadow become.
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Ivy is of longevity.
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A point is not part of a line.
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When the thing taken into union is perfectly adapted to that which receives it, the result is delight and pleasure and satisfaction.
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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 memory of benefits is a frail defence against ingratitude.
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Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.
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We see the most striking example of humility in the lamb which will submit to any animal; and when they are given for food to imprisoned lions they are as gentle to them as to their own mother, so that very often it has been seen that the lions forbear to kill them.
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Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.
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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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Truth was the only daughter of Time.
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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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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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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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One who by himself is mild enough and void of all offence will become terrible and fierce by being in bad company, and will most cruelly take the life of many men, and would kill many more if they were not hindered by bodies having no soul, that have come out of caverns - that is, breastplates of iron.
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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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The false interpreters of nature declare that quicksilver is the common seed of every metal, not remembering that nature varies the seed according to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the world.
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Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love.
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Fire destroys all sophistry, that is deceit; and maintains truth alone, that is gold.
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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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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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There will be many which will increase in their destruction.
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I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.