Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

Savage is he who saves himself.

Feathers shall raise men even as they do birds towards heaven :- That is by letters written with their quills.

The motive power is the cause of all life.

That which has no limitations, has no form.

Just as iron rusts from disuse, and stagnant water putrefies, or when cold turns to ice, so our intellect wastes unless it is kept in use.

We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.

The sun gives spirit and life to the plants and the earth nourishes them with moisture.

He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Let proportion be found not only in numbers and measures, but also in sounds, weights, times, and positions, and what ever force there is.

Life well spent is long.

... we might say that the earth has a spirit of growth; that its flesh is the soil, its bones the arrangement and connection of the rocks of which the mountains are composed, its cartilage the tufa, and its blood the springs of water.

The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.

Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.

Where there is most feeling, there is the greatest martyrdom.

Nothing is hidden under the sun.

Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.

If we make mistakes in our first compositions and do not know them, we may not amend them.

The study of what is excellent is food for the mind and body.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

While you are alone you are entirely your own master and if you have one companion you are but half your own, and the less so in proportion to the indiscretion of his behavior.

The five senses are the ministers of the soul.

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

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

Of the four elements water is the second in weight and the second in respect of mobility. It is never at rest until it unites with the sea.

You grow in reputation like bread in the hands of a child.

A well-spent day brings happy sleep.

Knowledge ... shall always bear witness like a clarion to its creator.

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.

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.

Though I may not . . . be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy - on experience.

I am still hopeful. A falcon, Time. But the coincidence is probably accidental.

To me it seems that those sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, first-hand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has passed through one of the five senses.

life without love, is no life at all

You should prefer a good scientist without literary abilities than a literate one without scientific skills

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

Demetrius was wont to say that there was no difference between the words and speech of the unskilled and ignorant and the sounds and rumblings caused by the stomach being full of superfluous wind. This he said, not without reason, for, as he held, it did not in the least matter from what part of them the voice emanated, whether from the lower parts or the mouth, since the one and the other were of equal worth and importance.

Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it.

Movement will fail sooner than usefulness.

Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, labor in vain.

A good painter has two main objects to paint, man and the intention of his soul.

The eye - which sees all objects reversed - retains the images for some time.

Medicine is the restoration of discordant elements.

What induces you, oh man, to depart from your home in town, to leave parents and friends, and go to the countryside over mountains and valleys, if it is not for the beauty of the world of nature?

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.

Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.

An arch consists of two weaknesses which, leaning one against the other, make a strength.

Make an effort to collect the good features from many beautiful faces.

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