Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

367 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leonardo da Vinci
Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.

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
In nature there is no effect without cause; once the cause is understood there is no need to test it by experience.

Leonardo da Vinci
The light for drawing from nature should come from the North in order that it may not vary. And if you have it from the South, keep the window screened with cloth, so that with the sun shining the whole day the light may not vary. The height of the light so arranged as that every object shall cast a shadow on the ground of the same length as itself.

Leonardo da Vinci
The mole has very small eyes and it always lives under ground; and it lives as long as it is in the dark but when it comes into the light it dies immediately, because it becomes known;--and so it is with lies.

Leonardo da Vinci
In the study of the sciences which depend on mathematics, those who do not consult nature, but authors, are not the children of nature; they are only her grandchildren. Nature alone is the master of true genius.

Leonardo da Vinci
I say that the blueness we see in the atmosphere is not intrinsic colour, but is caused by warm vapour evaporated in minute and insensible atoms on which the solar rays fall, rendering them luminous against the infinite darkness of the fiery sphere which lies beyond and includes it.

Leonardo da Vinci
O mathematicians, throw light on this error.

Leonardo da Vinci
It is the infinite alone that cannot be attained, for if it could it would become finite.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

Leonardo da Vinci
The eye, which is said to be the window of the soul, is the primary way in which the sensory receptacle of the brain may more fully and magnificently contemplate the infinite works of nature, and the ear is the second, gaining nobility through the recounting of things which the eye has seen.

Leonardo da Vinci
If you, historians or poets or mathematicians, had not seen things through your eyes, you would only be able to report them poorly by writing. And if you, poet, claim to portray a story as if painting with your pen, the painter with his brush will more readily satisfy and will be understood less tediously. If you assert that painting is dumb poetry, then the painter may call poetry blind painting.

Leonardo da Vinci
When Fortune comes, seize her in front with a sure hand, because behind she is bald.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

Leonardo da Vinci
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.

Leonardo da Vinci
Therefore, O students, study mathematics, and do not build without foundations.

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

Leonardo da Vinci
Lust is the cause of generation
Appetite is the support of life
Fear or timidity is the prolongation of life, and
Fraud the preservation of its instruments.

Leonardo da Vinci
The Bactrian have two humps; the Arabian one only. They are swift in battle and most useful to carry burdens. This animal is extremely observant of rule and measure, for it will not move if it has a greater weight than it is used to, and if it is taken too far it does the same, and suddenly stops and so the merchants are obliged to lodge there.

Leonardo da Vinci