Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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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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Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing.
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A man was desired to rise from bed, because the sun was already risen. To which he replied: 'If I had as far to go, and as much to do as he has, I should be risen by now; but having but a little way to go, I shall not rise yet.'
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Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience.
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Nothing is so much to be feared as Evil Report.
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The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united with them. And any one standing on the moon, when it and the sun are both beneath us, would see this our earth and the element of water upon it just as we see the moon, and the earth would light it as it lights us.
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While I thought I have been learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
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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 standing in opposite hemispheres will converse and deride each other and embrace each other, and understand each other's language.
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All the rays which convey the images of objects through the air are straight lines. Hence, if the images of very large bodies have to pass through very small holes, and beyond these holes recover their large size, the lines must necessarily intersect.
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Where there is most power of feeling, there of martyrs is the greatest martyr.
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O admirable impartiality of Thine, Thou first Mover; Thou hast not permitted that any force should fail of the order or quality of its necessary results.
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If you wish to make a figure in marble, first make one of clay, and when you have finished it, let it dry and place it in a case which should be large enough, after the figure is taken out of it, to receive also the marble, from which you intend to reveal the figure in imitation of the one in clay.
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The function which the wing performs against the air when the air is motionless is the same as that of the air moved against the wings when these are without motion.
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Movement will cease before we are weary of being useful.
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To enjoy-to love a thing for its own sake and for no other reason.
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The spirit has no voice, because where there is a voice there is a body, and where there is a body space is occupied, and this prevents the eye from seeing what is placed behind that space; hence the surrounding air is filled by the body, that is by its image.
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Weight, force and casual impulse, together with resistance, are the four external powers in which all the visible actions of mortals have their being and their end.
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Since the wings are swifter to press the air than the air is to escape from beneath the wings the air becomes condensed and resists the movement of the wings; and the motive power of these wings by subduing the resistance of the air raises itself in a contrary movement to the movement of the wings.
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I ask at what part of its curved motion the moving cause will leave the thing moved and moveable.
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Where there is most feeling, there is the greatest martyrdom.
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The smallest natural point is larger than all mathematical points, and this is proved because the natural point has continuity, and any thing that is continuous is infinitely divisible; but the mathematical point is indivisible because it has no size.
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Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker.
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If you are representing a white body let it be surrounded by ample space, because as white has no colour of its own, it is tinged and altered in some degree by the colour of the objects surrounding it.