Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

367 Sourced Quotes

Who would believe that so small a space could contain the images of all the universe?

Leonardo da Vinci
It reflects no great honour on a painter to be able to execute one thing well.

Leonardo da Vinci
The imagination is to the effect as the shadow to the opaque body which causes the shadow.

Leonardo da Vinci
Perspective is to painting what the bridle is to the horse, the rudder to a ship.

Leonardo da Vinci
The interpreter of the wonders of nature is experience. It never misleads us, only our grasp can do it with us. Until we can establish a general rule, we must accept the help of experience. Although nature begins with the cause, and with the experiment, we must do it inversely, we must discover the cause with experiments.

Leonardo da Vinci
If thou sayest that sciences which begin and end in the mind are true, this cannot be conceded, but must be denied for many reasons, and firstly because in such mental discourses experience is eliminated, and without experience there can be no certainty.

Leonardo da Vinci
A painter was asked why, since he made such beautiful figures, which were but dead things, his children were so ugly; to which the painter replied that he made his pictures by day, and his children by night.

Leonardo da Vinci
You who speculate on the nature of things, I praise you not for knowing the processes which nature ordinarily effects of herself, but rejoice if so be that you know the issue of such things as your mind conceives.

Leonardo da Vinci
The evil which does me no harm is like the good which in no wise avails me.

Leonardo da Vinci
Nature appears to have been the cruel stepmother rather than the mother of many animals.

Leonardo da Vinci
To any white body receiving the light from the sun, or the air, the shadows will be of a bluish cast.

Leonardo da Vinci
The water wears away the mountains and fills up the valleys, and if it had the power it would reduce the earth to a perfect sphere.

Leonardo da Vinci
The young man should first learn perspective, then the proportions of objects. Next, copy work after the hand of a good master, to gain the habit of drawing parts of the body well; and then to work from nature, to confirm the lessons learned.

Leonardo da Vinci
Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.

Leonardo da Vinci
Just as iron which is not used grows rusty, and water putrefies and freezes in the cold, so the mind of which no use is made is spoilt.

Leonardo da Vinci
The fox when it sees a flock of herons or magpies or birds of that kind, suddenly flings himself on the ground with his mouth open to look as he were dead; and these birds want to peck at his tongue, and he bites off their heads.

Leonardo da Vinci
Virtue is our true wealth and the true reward of its possessor; it cannot be lost, it never deserts us until life leaves us.

Leonardo da Vinci
The eye so soon as ever it is opened beholds all the stars of our hemisphere.

Leonardo da Vinci
But first I shall test by experiment before I proceed further, because my intention is to consult experience first and then with reasoning show why such experience is bound to operate in such a way.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

Leonardo da Vinci
There are three aspects to perspective. The first has to do with how the size of objects seems to diminish according to distance: the second, the manner in which colors change the farther away they are from the eye; the third defines how objects ought to be finished less carefully the farther away they are.

Leonardo da Vinci
Nothing is written as the result of new researches.

Leonardo da Vinci
The soul can never be corrupted with the corruption of the body, but it is like the wind which causes the sound of the organ, and which ceases to produce a good effect when a pipe is spoilt.

Leonardo da Vinci
All science which end in words are dead the moment they come to life, except for their manual part, that is to say, the writing, which is the mechanical part.

Leonardo da Vinci
Oh! Mediators of perpetual motion, how many vain projects of similar character you have devised! Go and join the seekers of gold.

Leonardo da Vinci
Make yourself a master of perspective, then acquire perfect knowledge of the proportions of men and other animals.

Leonardo da Vinci
Experiment is the interpreter of nature. Experiments never deceive. It is our judgment which sometimes deceives itself because it expects results which experiment refuses. We must consult experiment, varying the circumstances, until we have deduced general rules, for experiment alone can furnish reliable rules.

Leonardo da Vinci
The fame of the rich man dies with him; the fame of the treasure, and not of the man who possessed it, remains.

Leonardo da Vinci
If you cause your ship to stop and place the head of a long tube in the water and place the outer extremity to your ear, you will hear ships at a great distance from you.

Leonardo da Vinci
The soul is content to stay imprisoned in the human body... for through the eyes all the various things of nature are represented to the soul.

Leonardo da Vinci