Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

367 Sourced Quotes

When you have drawn the same thing so many times that it seems that you know it by heart try to do it without the model; but having a tracing made of the model upon a thin piece of smooth glass and lay this upon the drawing you have made without the model.... where you find that you have erred bear it in mind in order not to make the mistake again.... if you cannot procure smooth glass to make a tracing... take a piece of very fine parchment well oiled and then dried, and when you have used it for for one drawing you can wipe this out with a sponge and do a second.

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

Leonardo da Vinci
Let no one read me who is not a mathematician in my beginnings.

Leonardo da Vinci
Having wandered some distance among gloomy rocks, I came to the entrance of a great cavern... Two contrary emotions arose in me: fear and desire—fear of the threatening dark cavern, desire to see whether there were any marvelous things in it.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

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

Leonardo da Vinci
There is no certainty in sciences where one of the mathematical sciences cannot be applied, or which are not in relation with these mathematics.

Leonardo da Vinci
I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

Leonardo da Vinci
Oh! how foul a thing, that we should see the tongue of one animal in the guts of another.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

Leonardo da Vinci
Perspective is a most subtle discovery in mathematical studies, for by means of lines it causes to appear distant that which is near, and large that which is small.

Leonardo da Vinci
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."

Leonardo da Vinci
I abhor the supreme folly of those who blame the disciples of nature in defiance of those masters who were themselves her pupils

Leonardo da Vinci
Experience shows us that the air must have darkness beyond it and yet it appears blue. If you produce a small quantity of smoke from dry wood and the rays of the sun fall on this smoke, and if you then place behind the smoke a piece of black velvet on which the sun does not shine, you will see that all the smoke which is between the eye and the black stuff will appear of a beautiful blue colour. And if instead of the velvet you place a white cloth smoke, that is too thick smoke, hinders, and too thin smoke does not produce, the perfection of this blue colour. Hence a moderate amount of smoke produces the finest blue.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

Leonardo da Vinci
It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last.

Leonardo da Vinci
There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment.

Leonardo da Vinci