Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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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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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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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.
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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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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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Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.
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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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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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I ask at what part of its curved motion the moving cause will leave the thing moved and moveable.
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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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The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.
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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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Where there is most power of feeling, there of martyrs is the greatest martyr.
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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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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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Men will deal rude blows to that which is the cause of their life:-They will thrash the grain.
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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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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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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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To enjoy-to love a thing for its own sake and for no other reason.
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The boundaries of bodies are the least of all things. The proposition is proved to be true, because the boundary of a thing is a surface, which is not part of the body contained within that surface; nor is it part of the air surrounding that body, but is the medium interposted between the air and the body, as is proved in its place.