Love shows itself more in adversity than in prosperity; as light does, which shines most where the place is darkest.
Leonardo da VinciA bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements, but not with a corresponding degree of strength, though it is deficient only in the power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man.
Leonardo da VinciLearning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.
Leonardo da VinciThirst will parch your tongue and your body will waste through lack of sleep ere you can describe in words that which painting instantly sets before the eye.
Leonardo da VinciYou should look at certain walls stained with damp, or at stones of uneven color. If you have to invent some backgrounds you will be able to see in these the likeness of divine landscapes, adorned with mountains, ruins, rocks, woods, great plains, hills and valleys in great variety; and expressions of faces and clothes and an infinity of things which you will be able to reduce to their complete and proper forms. In such walls the same thing happens as in the sound of bells, in whose stroke you may find every named word which you can imagine.
Leonardo da Vinci