Top 596 Quotes & Sayings by Leonardo da Vinci - Page 2

I have wasted my hours.

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.

The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.

Medicine is the restoration of discordant elements; sickness is the discord of the elements infused into the living body.

Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.

Our body is dependant on Heaven and Heaven on the Spirit.

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever-lasting.

I have found that, in the composition of the human body as compared with the bodies of animals, the organs of sense are duller and coarser. Thus, it is composed of less ingenious instruments, and of spaces less capacious for receiving the faculties of sense.

The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.

The painter who is familiar with the nature of the sinews, muscles, and tendons, will know very well, in giving movement to a limb, how many and which sinews cause it; and which muscle, by swelling, causes the contraction of that sinew; and which sinews, expanded into the thinnest cartilage, surround and support the said muscle.

The length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height.

The spirit desires to remain with its body, because, without the organic instruments of that body, it can neither act, nor feel anything.

People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those who do not see.

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.

Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man.

The Medici created and destroyed me.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail against my lips.

Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.

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.

For, verily, great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it, you will be able to love it only little or not at all.

You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.

The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of colour at long distances.

Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law.

Painting is concerned with all the 10 attributes of sight; which are: Darkness, Light, Solidity and Colour, Form and Position, Distance and Propinquity, Motion and Rest.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

The senses are of the earth, the reason stands apart from them in contemplation.

We know well that mistakes are more easily detected in the works of others than in one's own.

The greatest geniuses sometimes accomplish more when they work less.

Let not your rage or malice destroy a life.

Obstacles cannot bend me. Every obstacle yields to effort.

Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.

Be a mirror, absorb everything around you and still remain the same

Your brain is much better than you think; just use it!

To be a winner you must want to win but must know of the chance of losing and must not fear of it.

life without love, is no life at all

Experience is a truer guide than the words of others.

A clever man without wisdom is like a beautiful flower without fragrance.

It's not enough that you believe what you see. You must also understand what you see.

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works.

Motion is created by the destruction of balance.

Beauty perishes in life, but is immortal in art.

As you cannot do what you want, Want what you can do

Whoever in debate quotes authority uses not intellect, but memory.

All thoughts start from emotions.

Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.

Whatever you do in life, if you want to be creative and intelligent, and develop your brain, you must do everything with the awareness that everything, in some way, connects to everything else.

Everything comes from everything, and everything is made out of everything, and everything returns into everything.

Not to punish evil is equivalent to authorizing it.

once you have tasted the taste of sky, you will forever look up

average human “looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fragrance, and talks without thinking.

A diamond is just a lump of coal that stuck to its job.

The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself.

I'm not contented to capture the world. I want to change it.

I am not poor. Poor are those who desire many things.

There is nothing which deceives us as much as our own judgement.