Leonardo da Vinci - Life Quotes

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As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

Leonardo da Vinci
O mighty and once living instrument of formative nature. Incapable of availing thyself of thy vast strength thou hast to abandon a life of stillness and to obey the law which God and time gave to procreative nature.

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

Leonardo da Vinci
Every loss which we incur leaves behind it vexation in the memory, save the greatest loss of all, that is, death, which annihilates the memory, together with life.

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
Many will there be who will give up work and labour and poverty of life and goods, and will go to live among wealth in splendid buildings, declaring that this is the way to make themselves acceptable to God.

Leonardo da Vinci
It is true that impatience, the mother of stupidity, praises brevity, as if such persons had not life long enough to serve them to acquire a complete knowledge of one single subject, such as the human body; and then they want to comprehend the mind of God in which the universe is included, weighing it minutely and mincing it into infinite parts, as if they had to dissect it!

Leonardo da Vinci
O Man, who will discern in this work of mine the wonderful works of Nature, if you think it would be a criminal thing to destroy it, reflect how much more criminal it is to take the life of a man; and if this, his external form, appears to thee marvellously constructed, remember that it is nothing as compared with the soul that dwells in that structure; for that indeed, be it what it may, is a thing divine. Leave it then to dwell in His work at His good will and pleasure, and let not your rage or malice destroy a life — for indeed, he who does not value it, does not himself deserve it.

Leonardo da Vinci
The water which rises in the mountain is the blood which keeps the mountain in life.

Leonardo da Vinci
O sleepers! what a thing is slumber! Sleep resembles death. Ah, why then dost thou not work in such wise as that after death thou mayst retain a resemblance to perfect life, when, during life, thou art in sleep so like to the hapless dead?

Leonardo da Vinci
One who by himself is mild enough and void of all offence will become terrible and fierce by being in bad company, and will most cruelly take the life of many men, and would kill many more if they were not hindered by bodies having no soul, that have come out of caverns — that is, breastplates of iron.

Leonardo da Vinci
As a day well spent procures a happy sleep, so a life well employed procures a happy death.

Leonardo da Vinci
That man is of supreme folly who always wants for fear of wanting; and his life flies away while he is still hoping to enjoy the good things which he has with extreme labour acquired.

Leonardo da Vinci
Men will deal rude blows to that which is the cause of their life:—They will thrash the grain.

Leonardo da Vinci
Man and the animals are merely a passage and channel for food, a tomb for other animals, a haven for the dead, giving life by the death of others, a coffer full of corruption.

Leonardo da Vinci
If you wish to thoroughly accustom yourself to correct and good positions for your fingers, fasten a frame or a loom divided into squares by threads between your eye and the nude figure which you are representing, and then make the same squares upon the paper where you wish to draw the said nude but very faintly. You should then put a pellet of wax on a part of the network to serve as a mark which as you look at your model should always cover the pit of the throat, or if he should have turned his back make it cover one of the vertebrae of the neck.... The squares you draw may be as much smaller than those of the network in proportion as you wish your figure to be less than life size...

Leonardo da Vinci
All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.

Leonardo da Vinci
That is not riches, which may be lost; virtue is our true good and the true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost; that never deserts us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external riches, hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt, and mocked at for having lost them.

Leonardo da Vinci
Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.

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

Leonardo da Vinci
It is ordained that to the ambitious, who derive no satisfaction from the gifts of life and the beauty of the world, life shall be a cause of suffering, and they shall possess neither the profit nor the beauty of the world.

Leonardo da Vinci