Leonardo da Vinci
painter, engineer, astronomer, philosopher, anatomist, mathematician, sculptor, polymath, architect, civil engineer, diplomat, inventor, composer, physicist, physiologist, botanist, chemist, zoologist, caricaturist, scientist, architectural draftsperson, designer, writer, visual artist
Read on Wikipedia1452 – 1519
All Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci
“I ask at what part of its curved motion the moving cause will leave the thing moved and moveable.”
“Reserve the great matters till the end, and the small matters give at the beginning.”
“Every part is disposed to unite with the whole, that it may thereby escape from its own incompleteness.”
“The mind passes in an instant from east to west; and all the great incorporeal things resemble these very closely in speed.”
“While I thought I have been learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.”
“Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.”
“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.”
“Where there is most power of feeling, there of martyrs is the greatest martyr.”
“Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.”
“Science, knowledge of the things that are possible present and past; prescience, knowledge of the things which may come to pass.”
“To enjoy—to love a thing for its own sake and for no other reason.”
“Life well spent is long.”
“Observe the light and consider its beauty. Blink your eye and look at it. That which you see was not there at first, and that which was there is there no more.”
“A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.”
“The water which rises in the mountain is the blood which keeps the mountain in life.”
“Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man.”
“He who does not value life does not deserve it.”
“Nature is full of infinite causes which were never set forth in experience.”
“Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work... men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.”
“Wine is good, but water is preferable at table.”
“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.”
“A bird makes the same use of wings and tail in the air as a swimmer does of his arms and legs in the water.”
“Every body that is moved continues to move so long as the impression of the force of its mover is retained in it, therefore the movement of this wing with violence... will come to move the whole bird with it until the impetus of the moved air has been consumed.”
“Remember that your bird should have no other model than the bat, because its membranes serve as an armour or rather as a means of building together the pieces of its armour, that is the framework of the wings.”
“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.”
“You will perhaps say that the sinews and muscles of a bird are incomparably more powerful than those of a man... But the reply to this is that such great strength gives it a reserve of power beyond what it ordinarily uses...”
“Swimming upon water teaches men how birds do upon the air.”
“The air which is struck with most swiftness by the movable thing is compressed to the greatest degree in itself.”
“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.”
“It is always the under side of the branches of any plant that show themselves to the wind which strikes it, and one leans against the other.”
“That part of the air which is nearest to the wing which presses on it, will have the greatest density.”
“The properties of the air are such that it may become condensed or rarefied.”
“No impetus created by any movement whatever can be immediately consumed, but if it finds an object which has a great resistance it consumes itself in a reflex movement.”
“Impetus is a power of the mover applied in a movable thing which causes the movable thing to move after it is separated from its mover.”
“Painting is concerned with all the ten attributes of sight, namely darkness and brightness, substance and colour, form and place, remoteness and nearness, movement and rest; and it is with these attributes that this my small book will be woven, recalling to the painter by what rules and in what way he ought by his art to imitate all things that are the work of nature and the adornment of the world.”
“Whenever you make a figure of a man or of some graceful animal remember to avoid making it seem wooden; that is it should move with counterpoise and balance in such a way as not to seem a block of wood.”
“Our life is made by the death of others.”
“I give the degrees of things seen by the eye as the musician does of the sounds heard by the ear.”
“You know that in an atmosphere of uniform density the most distant things seen through it, such as the mountains, in consequence of the great quantity of atmosphere which is between your eye and them, will appear blue. Therfore you should make the building... wall which is more distant less defined and bluer. ...five times as far away make five times as blue.”
“Painting embraces and contains within itself all the things which nature produces or which results from the fortuitous actions of men... he is but a poor master who makes only a single figure well.”
“Happy will be those who give ear to the words of the dead:—The reading of good works and the observing of their precepts.”
“Feathers shall raise men towards the heaven even as they do the birds:—That is by the letters written by their quills.”
“Things severed shall be united and shall acquire of themselves such virtue that they shall restore to men their lost memory:—That is the papyrus sheets, which are formed out of several strips and preserve the memory of the thoughts and deeds of men.”
“Men will deal rude blows to that which is the cause of their life:—They will thrash the grain.”
“The wind which passes through the skins of animals will make men leap up:—That is the bagpipes, which cause men to dance.”
“Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen. These two arts, you may call them both either poetry or painting, have here interchanged the senses by which they penetrate to the intellect.”
“Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.”
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
“Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.”
“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.”
“Life well spent is long.”
“Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.”
“Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.”
“Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory.”
“Who sows virtue reaps honor.”
“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”
“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”
“Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature.”
“Human subtlety...will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”
“Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics.”
“I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.”
“The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.”
“Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?”
“I know that many will call this useless work.”
“Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy — on experience, the mistress of their Masters. They go about puffed up and pompous, dressed and decorated with [the fruits], not of their own labours, but of those of others. And they will not allow me my own. They will scorn me as an inventor; but how much more might they — who are not inventors but vaunters and declaimers of the works of others — be blamed.”
“Those men who are inventors and interpreters between Nature and Man, as compared with boasters and declaimers of the works of others, must be regarded and not otherwise esteemed than as the object in front of a mirror, when compared with its image seen in the mirror. For the first is something in itself, and the other nothingness. — Folks little indebted to Nature, since it is only by chance that they wear the human form and without it I might class them with the herds of beasts.”
“Der Augenblick ist zeitlos.”
“If the Lord — who is the light of all things — vouchsafe to enlighten me, I will treat of Light; wherefore I will divide the present work into 3 Parts... Linear Perspective, The Perspective of Colour, The Perspective of Disappearance.”
“These rules are of use only in correcting the figures; since every man makes some mistakes in his first compositions and he who knows them not, cannot amend them. But you, knowing your errors, will correct your works and where you find mistakes amend them, and remember never to fall into them again. But if you try to apply these rules in composition you will never make an end, and will produce confusion in your works.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Here forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing … Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity — by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles...”
“The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.”
“Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the memory by not assimilating what it absorbs.”
“The eye — which sees all objects reversed — retains the images for some time. This conclusion is proved by the results; because, the eye having gazed at light retains some impression of it. After looking (at it) there remain in the eye images of intense brightness, that make any less brilliant spot seem dark until the eye has lost the last trace of the impression of the stronger light.”
“A point is not part of a line.”
“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.”
“Nothing is that which fills no space. If one single point placed in a circle may be the starting point of an infinite number of lines, and the termination of an infinite number of lines, there must be an infinite number of points separable from this point, and these when reunited become one again; whence it follows that the part may be equal to the whole.”
“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.”
“That which has no limitations, has no form. The limitations of two conterminous bodies are interchangeably the surface of each. All the surfaces of a body are not parts of that body.”
“The line has in itself neither matter nor substance and may rather be called an imaginary idea than a real object; and this being its nature it occupies no space. Therefore an infinite number of lines may be conceived of as intersecting each other at a point, which has no dimensions and is only of the thickness (if thickness it may be called) of one single line.”
“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.”
“Perspective is nothing more than a rational demonstration applied to the consideration of how objects in front of the eye transmit their image to it, by means of a pyramid of lines. The Pyramid is the name I apply to the lines which, starting from the surface and edges of each object, converge from a distance and meet in a single point.”
“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.”
“Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work... men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”
“Every body in light and shade fills the surrounding air with infinite images of itself; and these, by infinite pyramids diffused in the air, represent this body throughout space and on every side.”
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”
“All objects project their whole image and likeness, diffused and mingled in the whole of the atmosphere, opposite to themselves. The image of every point of the bodily surface, exists in every part of the atmosphere. All the images of the objects are in every part of the atmosphere.”
“Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose”
“It is impossible that the eye should project from itself, by visual rays, the visual virtue, since, as soon as it opens, that front portion [of the eye] which would give rise to this emanation would have to go forth to the object and this it could not do without time. And this being so, it could not travel so high as the sun in a month's time when the eye wanted to see it.”
“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.”
“O neglectful Nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel and ruthless stepmother? I see thy children given into slavery to others without ever receiving any benefit, and in lieu of any reward for the services they have done for them they are repaid by the severest punishments.”
“The Medici created and destroyed me.”
“Shadow is not the absence of light, merely the obstruction of the luminous rays by an opaque body. Shadow is of the nature of darkness. Light is of the nature of a luminous body; one conceals and the other reveals. They are always associated and inseparable from all objects. But shadow is a more powerful agent than light, for it can impede and entirely deprive bodies of their light, while light can never entirely expel shadow from a body, that is from an opaque body.”
“Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.”
“Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light.”
“A shadow may be infinitely dark, and also of infinite degrees of absence of darkness. The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.”
“All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.”
“He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”
“Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.”
“Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.”
“Light is the chaser away of darkness. Shade is the obstruction of light. Primary light is that which falls on objects and causes light and shade. And derived lights are those portions of a body which are illuminated by the primary light. A primary shadow is that side of a body on which the light cannot fall.”
“The eye can best distinguish the forms of objects when it is placed between the shaded and the illuminated parts.”
“The outlines and form of any part of a body in light and shade are indistinct in the shadows and in the high lights; but in the portions between the light and the shadows they are highly conspicuous.”
“A single and distinct luminous body causes stronger relief in the object than a diffused light; as may be seen by comparing one side of a landscape illuminated by the sun, and one overshadowed by clouds, and so illuminated only by the diffused light of the atmosphere.”
“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.”
“If you transmit the rays of the sun through a hole in the shape of a star you will see a beautiful effect of perspective in the spot where the sun's rays fall.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I ask how far away the eye can discern a non-luminous body, as, for instance, a mountain. It will be very plainly visible if the sun is behind it; and could be seen at a greater or less distance according to the sun's place in the sky.”
“When you represent in your work shadows which you can only discern with difficulty, and of which you cannot distinguish the edges so that you apprehend them confusedly, you must not make them sharp or definite lest your work should have a wooden effect.”
“A shadow will appear dark in proportion to the brilliancy of the light surrounding it and conversely it will be less conspicuous where it is seen against a darker background.”
“A dark object seen against a bright background will appear smaller than it is. A light object will look larger when it is seen against a background darker than itself.”
“A luminous body when obscured by a dense atmosphere will appear smaller; as may be seen by the moon or sun veiled by fogs.”
“Of several luminous bodies of equal size and brilliancy and at an equal distance, that will look the largest which is surrounded by the darkest background.”
“I find that any luminous body when seen through a dense and thick mist diminishes in proportion to its distance from the eye. Thus it is with the sun by day, as well as the moon and the other eternal lights by night. And when the air is clear, these luminaries appear larger in proportion as they are farther from the eye.”
“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.”
“A luminous body will appear more brilliant in proportion as it is surrounded by deeper shadow.”
“Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work... men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.”
“The variety of colour in objects cannot be discerned at a great distance, excepting in those parts which are directly lighted up by the solar rays.”
“The atmosphere is blue by reason of the darkness above it because black and white make blue.”
“The sun gives spirit and life to plants and the earth nourishes them with moisture.”
“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.”
“I myself have proved it to be of no small use, when in bed in the dark, to recall in fancy the external details of forms previously studied, or other noteworthy things conceived by subtle speculation; and this is certainly an admirable exercise, and useful for impressing things on the memory.”
“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.”
“The motions of men must be such as suggest their dignity or their baseness.”
“Represent your figures in such action as may be fitted to express what purpose is in the mind of each; otherwise your art will not be admirable.”
“What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art.”
“The painter strives and competes with nature.”
“We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God.”
“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”
“Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.”
“Ivy is of longevity.”
“Fire destroys falsehood, that is sophistry, and restores truth, driving out darkness.”
“I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.”
“Fire may be represented as the destroyer of all sophistry, and as the image and demonstration of truth; because it is light and drives out darkness which conceals all essences [or subtle things].”
“Fire destroys all sophistry, that is deceit; and maintains truth alone, that is gold.”
“Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.”
“Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.”
“If the painter wishes to see beauties that charm him, it lies in his power to create them, and if he wishes to see monstrosities that are frightful, ridiculous, or truly pitiable, he is lord and God thereof.”
“Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth.”
“Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”
“Movement will cease before we are weary of being useful.”
“Movement will fail sooner than usefulness.”
“When the sun appears which dispels darkness in general, you put out the light which dispelled it for you in particular for your need and convenience.”
“Constancy does not begin, but is that which perseveres.”
“Love, Fear, and Esteem, — Write these on three stones.”
“Fame alone raises herself to Heaven, because virtuous things are in favour with God.”
“Disgrace should be represented upside down, because all her deeds are contrary to God and tend to hell.”
“Nothing is so much to be feared as Evil Report.”
“I am still hopeful. A falcon, Time. But the coincidence is probably accidental.”
“Truth here makes Falsehood torment lying tongues.”
“Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.”
“Such as harm is when it hurts me not, is good which avails me not.”
“He who offends others, does not secure himself.”
“One's thoughts turn towards Hope.”
“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.”
“Sculptured figures which appear in motion, will, in their standing position, actually look as if they were falling forward.”
“To manage the large mould make a model of the small mould, make a small room in proportion.”
“Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.”
“Our life is made by the death of others.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I obey Thee Lord, first for the love I ought, in all reason to bear Thee; secondly for that Thou canst shorten or prolong the lives of men.”
“Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour.”
“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.”
“Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.”
“Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature.”
“In many cases one and the same thing is attracted by two strong forces, namely Necessity and Potency. Water falls in rain; the earth absorbs it from the necessity for moisture; and the sun evaporates it, not from necessity, but by its power.”
“He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”
“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.”
“Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.”
“The motive power is the cause of all life.”
“The part always has a tendency to reunite with its whole in order to escape from its imperfection.”
“Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than with the imagination being awake?”
“There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.”
“The senses are of the earth; Reason, stands apart in contemplation.”
“Every action needs to be prompted by a motive. To know and to will are two operations of the human mind. Discerning, judging, deliberating are acts of the human mind.”
“All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.”
“Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or past; prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to pass, though but slowly.”
“Experience, the interpreter between formative nature and the human race, teaches how that nature acts among mortals; and being constrained by necessity cannot act otherwise than as reason, which is its helm, requires her to act.”
“Wisdom is the daughter of experience.”
“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
“Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience.”
“In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water in itself, and this knowledge will be a step enabling us to arrive at the knowledge of beings that fly between the air and the wind.”
“The natural desire of good men is knowledge.”
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”
“Truth was the only daughter of Time.”
“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”
“I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.”
“Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.”
“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.”
“Every instrument requires to be made by experience.”
“The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.”
“The man who blames the supreme certainty of mathematics feeds on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of sophistical sciences which lead to an eternal quackery.”
“Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.”
“There is no certainty in sciences where one of the mathematical sciences cannot be applied, or which are not in relation with these mathematics.”
“Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.”
“Any one who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory. Good culture is born of a good disposition; and since the cause is more to be praised than the effect, I will rather praise a good disposition without culture, than good culture without the disposition.”
“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.”
“Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.”
“Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.”
“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.”
“While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.”
“O Time! consumer of all things; O envious age! thou dost destroy all things and devour all things with the relentless teeth of years, little by little in a slow death. Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the withered wrinkles made in her face by old age, wept and wondered why she had twice been carried away.”
“Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.”
“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”
“O sleepers! what a thing is slumber! Sleep resembles death. Ah, why then dost thou not work in such wise as that after death thou mayst retain a resemblance to perfect life, when, during life, thou art in sleep so like to the hapless dead?”
“Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”
“The knowledge of past times and of the places on the earth is both an ornament and nutriment to the human mind.”
“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.”
“To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God's grace; and Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.”
“Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.”
“Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker.”
“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.”
“Men are in error when they lament the flight of time, accusing it of being too swift, and not perceiving that it is sufficient as it passes; but good memory, with which nature has endowed us, causes things long past to seem present.”
“Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.”
“Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.”
“Life well spent is long.”
“The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.”
“Water is the driving force of all nature.”
“As a day well spent procures a happy sleep, so a life well employed procures a happy death.”
“There are four Powers: memory and intellect, desire and covetousness. The two first are mental and the others sensual. The three senses: sight, hearing and smell cannot well be prevented; touch and taste not at all.”
“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.”
“The human bird shall take his first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang.”
“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.”
“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”
“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
“I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.”
“You do ill if you praise, and still worse if you reprove in a matter you do not understand.”
“Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work... men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.”
“It seems to me that men of coarse and clumsy habits and of small knowledge do not deserve such fine instruments nor so great a variety of natural mechanism as men of speculation and of great knowledge; but merely a sack in which their food may be stowed and whence it may issue, since they cannot be judged to be any thing else than vehicles for food; for it seems to me they have nothing about them of the human species but the voice and the figure, and for all the rest are much below beasts.”
“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.”
“Some there are who are nothing else than a passage for food and augmentors of excrement and fillers of privies, because through them no other things in the world, nor any good effects are produced, since nothing but full privies results from them.”
“Medicine is the restoration of discordant elements; sickness is the discord of the elements infused into the living body.”
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”
“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”
“Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.”
“Blind ignorance misleads us thus and delights with the results of lascivious joys. Because it does not know the true light. Because it does not know what is the true light. Vain splendour takes from us the power of being .... behold! for its vain splendour we go into the fire, thus blind ignorance does mislead us. That is, blind ignorance so misleads us that... O! wretched mortals, open your eyes.”
“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.”
“That is not riches, which may be lost; virtue is our true good and the true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost; that never deserts us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external riches, hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt, and mocked at for having lost them.”
“The length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height.”
“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.”
“The Medici created and destroyed me.”
“He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.”
“The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.”
“That man is of supreme folly who always wants for fear of wanting; and his life flies away while he is still hoping to enjoy the good things which he has with extreme labour acquired.”
“Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man.”
“We ought not to desire the impossible.”
“Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.”
“Ask counsel of him who rules himself well.”
“I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.”
“You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.”
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
“It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last.”
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
“Where there is most feeling, there is the greatest martyrdom.”
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
“Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.”
“The memory of benefits is a frail defence against ingratitude.”
“There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.”
“Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.”
“Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?”
“Be not false about the past.”
“Who sows virtue reaps honor.”
“Patience serves us against insults precisely as clothes do against the cold. For if you multiply your garments as the cold increases, that cold cannot hurt you; in the same way increase your patience under great offences, and they cannot hurt your feelings.”
“The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.”
“To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.”
“I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.”
“I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.”
“Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue.”
“Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!”
“We are deceived by promises and time disappoints us...”
“The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.”
“Life well spent is long.”
“He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.”
“Fear arises sooner than anything else.”
“Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.”
“Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”
“All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”
“Threats alone are the weapons of the threatened man.”
“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”
“Wherever good fortune enters, envy lays siege to the place and attacks it; and when it departs, sorrow and repentance remain behind.”
“Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.”
“He who walks straight rarely falls.”
“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”
“It is bad if you praise, and worse if you reprove a thing, I mean, if you do not understand the matter well.”
“It's easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”
“It is ill to praise, and worse to reprimand in matters that you do not understand.”
“All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”
“Our life is made by the death of others.”
“Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.”
“The lover is moved by the beloved object as the senses are by sensual objects; and they unite and become one and the same thing. The work is the first thing born of this union; if the thing loved is base the lover becomes base.”
“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.”
“When the thing taken into union is perfectly adapted to that which receives it, the result is delight and pleasure and satisfaction.”
“He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”
“When that which loves is united to the thing beloved it can rest there; when the burden is laid down it finds rest there. There will be eternal fame also for the inhabitants of that town, constructed and enlarged by him.”
“You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.”
“The city will gain beauty worthy of its name and to you it will be useful by its revenues, and the eternal fame of its aggrandizement.”
“Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man.”
“A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.”
“To preserve Nature's chiefest boon, that is freedom, I can find means of offence and defence, when it is assailed by ambitious tyrants, and first I will speak of the situation of the walls, and also I shall show how communities can maintain their good and just Lords.”
“Time abides long enough for those who make use of it.”
“The false interpreters of nature declare that quicksilver is the common seed of every metal, not remembering that nature varies the seed according to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the world.”
“Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”
“Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude. Pharisees — that is to say, friars.”
“Nature never breaks her own laws.”
“It is true that impatience, the mother of stupidity, praises brevity, as if such persons had not life long enough to serve them to acquire a complete knowledge of one single subject, such as the human body; and then they want to comprehend the mind of God in which the universe is included, weighing it minutely and mincing it into infinite parts, as if they had to dissect it!”
“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 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.”
“Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.”
“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.”
“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes: so with time present.”
“Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.”
“Every quantity is intellectually conceivable as infinitely divisible.”
“He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.”
“What is called Nothingness is to be found only in time and in speech. In time it stands between the past and future and has no existence in the present; and thus in speech it is one of the things of which we say: They are not, or they are impossible.”
“Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the memory by not assimilating what it absorbs.”
“O mighty and once living instrument of formative nature. Incapable of availing thyself of thy vast strength thou hast to abandon a life of stillness and to obey the law which God and time gave to procreative nature.”
“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.”
“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.”
“Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?”
“O time, swift robber of all created things, how many kings, how many nations hast thou undone, and how many changes of states and of various events have happened since the wondrous forms of this fish perished here in this cavernous and winding recess. Now destroyed by time thou liest patiently in this confined space with bones stripped and bare; serving as a support and prop for the superimposed mountain.”
“You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.”
“The unicorn, through its intemperance and not knowing how to control itself, for the love it bears to fair maidens forgets its ferocity and wildness; and laying aside all fear it will go up to a seated damsel and go to sleep in her lap, and thus the hunters take it.”
“The senses are of the earth, the reason stands apart from them in contemplation.”
“We see the most striking example of humility in the lamb which will submit to any animal; and when they are given for food to imprisoned lions they are as gentle to them as to their own mother, so that very often it has been seen that the lions forbear to kill them.”
“The spirit desires to remain with its body, because, without the organic instruments of that body, it can neither act, nor feel anything.”
“The cock does not crow till it has thrice flapped its wings; the parrot in moving among boughs never puts its feet excepting where it has first put its beak. Vows are not made till Hope is dead.”
“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.”
“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."”
“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 natural desire of good men is knowledge.”
“First, of things relating to animals; secondly, of irrational creatures; thirdly of plants; fourthly, of ceremonies; fifthly, of manners; sixthly, of cases or edicts or quarrels; seventhly, of cases that are impossible in nature [paradoxes], as, for instance, of those things which, the more is taken from them, the more they grow. And reserve the great matters till the end, and the small matters give at the beginning.”
“The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.”
“There will be many who will eagerly and with great care and solicitude follow up a thing, which, if they only knew its malignity, would always terrify them. Of those men, who, the older they grow, the more avaricious they become, whereas, having but little time to stay, they should become more liberal.”
“In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water in itself, and this knowledge will be a step enabling us to arrive at the knowledge of beings that fly between the air and the wind.”
“Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in proportion as it is diminished.”
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
“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.”
“Oh! how foul a thing, that we should see the tongue of one animal in the guts of another.”
“I have wasted my hours.”
“There will be great winds by reason of which things of the East will become things of the West; and those of the South, being involved in the course of the winds, will follow them to distant lands.”
“To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another.”
“There will be many men who will move one against another, holding in their hands a cutting tool. But these will not do each other any injury beyond tiring each other; for, when one pushes forward the other will draw back. But woe to him who comes between them! For he will end by being cut in pieces.”
“Our body is dependant on Heaven and Heaven on the Spirit.”
“That which was at first bound, cast out and rent by many and various beaters will be respected and honoured, and its precepts will be listened to with reverence and love.”
“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.”
“One who by himself is mild enough and void of all offence will become terrible and fierce by being in bad company, and will most cruelly take the life of many men, and would kill many more if they were not hindered by bodies having no soul, that have come out of caverns — that is, breastplates of iron.”
“It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.”
“One shall be born from small beginnings which will rapidly become vast. This will respect no created thing, rather will it, by its power, transform almost every thing from its own nature into another.”
“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.”
“All the elements will be seen mixed together in a great whirling mass, now borne towards the centre of the world, now towards the sky; and now furiously rushing from the South towards the frozen North, and sometimes from the East towards the West, and then again from this hemisphere to the other.”
“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.”
“Men standing in opposite hemispheres will converse and deride each other and embrace each other, and understand each other's language.”
“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.”
“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.”
“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.”
“An infinite number of men will sell publicly and unhindered things of the very highest price, without leave from the Master of it; while it never was theirs nor in their power; and human justice will not prevent it.”
“All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.”
“There will be many which will increase in their destruction.”
“Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law.”
“The East will be seen to rush to the West and the South to the North in confusion round and about the universe, with great noise and trembling or fury.”
“The natural desire of good men is knowledge.”
“Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.”
“The solar rays will kindle fire on the earth, by which a thing that is under the sky will be set on fire, and, being reflected by some obstacle, it will bend downwards.”
“Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.”
“Happy will they be who lend ear to the words of the Dead.”
“Each man is always in the middle of the surface of the earth and under the zenith of his own hemisphere, and over the centre of the earth.”
“Men out of fear will cling to the thing they most fear.”
“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.”
“Things that are separate shall be united and acquire such virtue that they will restore to man his lost memory.”
“Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.”
“The bones of the Dead will be seen to govern the fortunes of him who moves them.”
“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.”
“The vine that has grown old on an old tree falls with the ruin of that tree, and through that bad companionship must perish with it.”
“Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.”
“The ball of snow when, as it rolls, it descends from the snowy mountains, increases in size as it falls.”
“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”
“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.”
“A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a baked one.”
“The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.”
“The image of the sun where it falls appears as a thing which covers the person who attempts to cover it.”
“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.”
“I have seen motions of the air so furious that they have carried, mixed up in their course, the largest trees of the forest and whole roofs of great palaces, and I have seen the same fury bore a hole with a whirling movement digging out a gravel pit, and carrying gravel, sand and water more than half a mile through the air.”
“Like a whirling wind which rushes down a sandy and hollow valley, and which, in its hasty course, drives to its centre every thing that opposes its furious course... No otherwise does the Northern blast whirl round in its tempestuous progress...”
“It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.”
“If you meet with any one who is virtuous do not drive him from you; do him honour, so that he may not have to flee from you and be reduced to hiding in hermitages, or caves or other solitary places to escape from your treachery; if there is such an one among you do him honour, for these are our Saints upon earth; these are they who deserve statues from us, and images...”
“May it please our great Author that I may demonstrate the nature of man and his customs, in the way I describe his figure.”
“This writing distinctly about the kite seems to be my destiny, because among the first recollections of my infancy, it seemed to me that, as I was in my cradle, a kite came to me and opened my mouth with its tail, and struck me several times with its tail inside my lips.”
“When I did well, as a boy you used to put me in prison. Now if I do it being grown up, you will do worse to me.”
“Tell me if anything was ever done.”
“Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love.”