Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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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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Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory.
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It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last.
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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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Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than with the imagination being awake?
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Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics.
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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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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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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.
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Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light.
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The bones of the Dead will be seen to govern the fortunes of him who moves them.
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The wind which passes through the skins of animals will make men leap up:-That is the bagpipes, which cause men to dance.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.
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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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The air which is struck with most swiftness by the movable thing is compressed to the greatest degree in itself.
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Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.