Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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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.
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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.
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Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.
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I give the degrees of things seen by the eye as the musician does of the sounds heard by the ear.
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All bodies together, and each by itself, give off to the surrounding air an infinite number of images which are all-pervading and each complete, each conveying the nature, colour and form of the body which produces it.
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We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God.
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Just as iron rusts unless it is used, and water putrifies or, in cold, turns to ice, so our intellect spoils unless it is kept in use.
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If you take as your pattern the wings of feathered birds, these are more powerful in structure of bone and sinew because they are penetrable, that is to say the feathers are separated from one another and the air passes through them. But the bat is aided by its membrane, which binds the whole together and is not penetrated by the air.
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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.
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Chi non punisce il male comanda che si faccia.
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A luminous body will appear more brilliant in proportion as it is surrounded by deeper shadow.
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Wherever good fortune enters, envy lays siege to the place and attacks it; and when it departs, sorrow and repentance remain behind.
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The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.
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The instant the atmosphere is illuminated it will be filled with an infinite number of images which are produced by the various bodies and colours assembled in it. And the eye is the target, a lodestone, of these images.
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Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.
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No small hole can so modify the convergence of rays of light as to prevent, at a long distance, the transmission of the true form of the luminous body causing them.
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Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who enters a ship without a helm or a compass, and who never can be certain whither he is going.
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Life well spent is long.
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Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.
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Men will deal rude blows to that which is the cause of their life:-They will thrash the grain.
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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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The mind passes in an instant from east to west; and all the great incorporeal things resemble these very closely in speed.
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The point, being indivisible, occupies no space. That which occupies no space is nothing. The limiting surface of one thing is the beginning of another.
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Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience.