Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
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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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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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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 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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Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.
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Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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I ask at what part of its curved motion the moving cause will leave the thing moved and moveable.
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The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.
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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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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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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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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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Men will deal rude blows to that which is the cause of their life:-They will thrash the grain.
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Where there is most feeling, there is the greatest martyrdom.
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Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker.