Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
-
Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics.
-
I obey Thee Lord, first for the love I ought, in all reason to bear Thee; secondly for that Thou canst shorten or prolong the lives of men.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light.
-
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.
-
The wind which passes through the skins of animals will make men leap up:-That is the bagpipes, which cause men to dance.
-
Perspective is nothing more than a rational demonstration applied to the consideration of how objects in front of the eye transmit their image to it, by means of a pyramid of lines. The Pyramid is the name I apply to the lines which, starting from the surface and edges of each object, converge from a distance and meet in a single point.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Feathers shall raise men towards the heaven even as they do the birds:-That is by the letters written by their quills.
-
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.
-
Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.
-
Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.
-
The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present.
-
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.
-
The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.
-
Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than with the imagination being awake?
-
Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in proportion as it is diminished.
-
Every body in light and shade fills the surrounding air with infinite images of itself; and these, by infinite pyramids diffused in the air, represent this body throughout space and on every side.
-
The bones of the Dead will be seen to govern the fortunes of him who moves them.
-
I give the degrees of things seen by the eye as the musician does of the sounds heard by the ear.
-
Men born in hot countries love the night because it refreshes them and have a horror of light because it burns them; and therefore they are of the colour of night, that is black. And in cold countries it is just the contrary.