Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

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

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

Life well spent is long.

In life beauty perishes, but not in art.

Life without love, is no life at all.

A clever man without wisdom is like a beautiful flower without fragrance.

A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

Time stays long enough for those who use it.

In time and with water, everything changes.

Water is the driving force in nature.

Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.

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

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

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

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

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

For youth, everything is sport.

In the days of thy youth seek to obtain that which shall compensate the losses of thy old age.

All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life.

That which can be lost cannot be deemed riches.

He who sows virtue reaps glory.

To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another.

It is ill to praise, and worse to blame, the thing which you do not understand.

O time! swift devourer of all created things!

He who thinks little errs much.

The good painter has two principal things to depict: man and the purpose of his mind. The first is easy, the second is difficult, since he must do it by the gestures and movements of the limbs, and this is to be learnt from the dumb, who more than all other men excel in it.

The painter's work will be of little merit if he takes the painting of others as his standard, but if he studies from nature he will produce good fruits.

If you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting.

The greatest deception which men incur proceeds from their opinions.

Necessity is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law.

Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity -- by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles.

Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature.

Nature never breaks her laws.

He is a poor disciple who does not surpass his master.

Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour.

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

All our knowledge has its origin in our preceptions.

Although human ingenuity may devise various inventions which, by the help of various instruments, answer to one and the same purpose, yet will it never discover any inventions more beautiful, more simple or more practical than those of nature.

He who wishes to grow rich in a day will be hanged in a year.

When fortune comes seize her in front firmly, because behind she is bald.

Faults are more easily recognized in the works of others than in our own.

Fame should be depicted covered with tongues instead of with feathers and in the form of a bird.

Experience is a truer guide than the words of others.

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

He who fears dangers will not perish by them.

To become an artist you have to be curious.

For once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occasion of folly.

Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.

Iron rusts from disuse even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.

A deaf and dumb person who sees two men in conversation may nevertheless understand from the attitudes and gestures of the speakers, how well their discussion is getting along.

A long life is a life well spent.

He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

The grave will fall in upon him who digs it.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence, he is just using his memory.

Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means of it, one comes to the fruits of mathematics.

Common sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.

What is called nothingness is to be found only in time and in speech. In time it stands between the past and future and has no existence in the present; and thus in speech it is one of the things of which we say: They are not, or they are impossible.

The boundaries of bodies are the least of all things.

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

O admirable necessity! O powerful action! What mind can penetrate your nature? What language can express this marvel? None, to be sure. This is where human discourse turns toward the contemplation of the divine.

Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work least, for they are thinking out inventions.

Whoever despises the high wisdom of mathematics nourishes himself on delusion and will never still the sophistic sciences whose only product is an eternal uproar.

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.

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

When counting, try not to mix chickens with blessings.

We are deceived by promises and time disappoints us.

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

The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use. But the bee...gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.

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

Necessity is a guardian in Nature.

We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God.

There is no higher or lower knowledge, but one only, flowing out of experimentation.

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.

Do not imitate one another's style. If you do, so far as your art is concerned you will be called a grandson, rather than the son of Nature.

There is nothing which deceives us as much as our own judgement.

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

Let not your rage or malice destroy a life.

If the thing loved is base, the lover becomes base.

The mind of a painter should be like a mirror which is filled with as many images as there are things placed before him.

Lust is the cause of generation.

Among the great things which are found among us the existence of Nothing is the greatest.

Strive to preserve your health; and in this you will better succeed in proportion as you keep clear of the physicians, for their drugs are a kind of alchemy concerning which there are no fewer books than there are medicines.

Poetry is superior to painting in the presentation of words, and painting is superior to poetry in the presentation of facts. For this reason I judge painting to be superior to poetry.

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

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

Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory.

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

A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements.

When you are painting you should take a flat mirror and often look at your work within it, and it will then be seen in reverse, and will appear to be by the hand of some other master, and you will be better able to judge of its faults than in any other way.

The first of all simple colours is White ... We shall set down White for the representative of light, without which no colour can be seen; Yellow for the earth; Green for water; Blue for air; Red for fire; and Black for total darkness.

Here is a thing which the more you fear and avoid it the nearer you approach to it, and this is misery; the more you flee from it the more miserable and restless you will become.

Intellectual passion dries out sensuality.

We might say that the earth has the spirit of growth; that its flesh is the soil.

How painting surpasses all human works by reason of the subtle possibilities which it contains.

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.

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

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.

Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes.

I am never weary of being useful... In serving others I cannot do enough. No labor is sufficient to tire me.

All objects transmit their image to the eye in pyramids and the nearer to the eye these pyramids are intersected the smaller will the image appear of the objects which cause them.

Even the richest soil, if left uncultivated will produce the rankest weeds.

Movement will fail sooner than usefulness.

Black is like a broken vessel, which is deprived of the capacity to contain anything.

The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.

To discover the soul living in somebody's body, we watch the surrounding of the body, and if it's messy and disordered, so is the soul.

Poor is the man who desires a lot.

The good painter must paint two things: a person and the essence of his soul.

Wood feeds the fire which burns it.

Experiment is the sole interpreter of the artifices 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.

He who does not value life does not deserve it.

He who in reasoning cites authority is making use of his memory rather than of his intellect.

Painting embraces and contains within itself all the things which nature produces or which results from the fortuitous actions of men... he is but a poor master who makes only a single figure well.

Wherever good fortune enters, envy lays siege to the place and attacks it; and when it departs, sorrow and repentance remain behind.

I have solved what color is, however ; I still have no idea about what line is.

A day will come in which men will look upon an animal's murder the same way they look today upon a man's murder.

Not to appreciate life, all of life, is not to deserve it.

The eye is the window of the human body through which it feels its way and enjoys the beauty of the world.

The motions of men must be such as suggest their dignity or their baseness.

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

Your brain is much better than you think; just use it!

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

Men born in hot countries love the night because it refreshes them and have a horror of light because it burns them.

If on your own or by the criticism of others you discover error in your work, correct it then and there; otherwise in exposing your work to the public, you will expose your error also.

Make your faces so that they do not all have the same expression, as one sees with most painters, but give them different expression, according to age, complexion, and good or bad character.

No human investigation can be called real science if it cannot be demonstrated mathematically.

A good memory, which nature has endowed us with, causes things long past to seem present.

Whatever you think matters -- doesn't. Follow this rule, and you will add decades to your life. Rodger Rosenblatt As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

Great love is born of great knowledge of the thing that is loved, and if you do not know it, you can love it little or not at all.

True and great love springs out of great knowledge, and where you know little you can love but little or not at all.

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

Every part is disposed to unite with the whole, that it may thereby escape from its own incompleteness.

The knowledge of the past times and of the places of the earth is both an ornament and nutriment to the human mind.

I have discovered that a screw-shaped device such as this, if it is well made from starched linen, will rise in the air if turned quickly.

Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light.

Thirst will parch your tongue and your body will waste through lack of sleep ere you can describe in words that which painting instantly sets before the eye.

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?

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.

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.

The faculty of imagination is both the rudder and the bridle of the senses.

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer.

An artist who lacks the power of self-criticism accomplishes but little. It is good if your work stands higher than your own opinion of it; bad if it is on the same level. But it is a great disaster if your work stands lower than your judgment of it.

One shall be born from small beginnings which will rapidly become vast. This will respect no created thing, rather will it, by its power, transform almost every thing from its own nature into another.

Fire destroys all sophistry, that is deceit; and maintains truth alone, that is gold.

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.

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.

I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand.

Learning is the only thing that never disappoints us.

Every man at three years old is half his height.

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

Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings a blessed death.

If you put on more garments, the cold cannot reach you. Similarly, increase your patience and concentration and even great injuries cannot vex your mind.

It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.

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.

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.

Experience, the interpreter between creative nature and the human race, teaches the action of nature among mortals: how under the constraint of necessity she cannot act otherwise than as reason, who steers her helm, teaches her to act.

Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who enters a ship without a helm or a compass, and who never can be certain whither he is going.

Men standing in opposite hemispheres will converse and deride each other and embrace each other, and understand each other's language.

Anyone who invokes authors in discussion is not using his intelligence but his memory.

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.

Old age takes in part savoury wisdom for its food -- see to that your old age will not lack in nourishment.

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.

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

In fact, whatever exists in the universe, in essence, in appearance, in the imagination, the painter has first in his mind and then in his hands ... it lies in his power to create them.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

If anyone wishes to see how the soul dwells in its body, let him observe how this body uses its daily habitation; that is to say, if this is devoid of order and confused, the body will be kept in disorder and confusion by its soul.

The act of procreation and anything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human beings would soon die out if there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions.

O painter skilled in anatomy, beware lest the undue prominence of the bones, sinews and muscles cause you to become a wooden painter from the desire to make your nude figures reveal all.

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

The great man presides over all his states of consciousness with obstinate rigor.

Inaction saps the vigor of the mind.

It should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which...you may find really marvellous ideas.

My body is not a tomb for animals.

Learn diligence before speedy execution.

In nature's inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.

Nature alone is the master of true genius.

The vine that has grown old on an old tree falls with the ruin of that tree, and through that bad companionship must perish with it.

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.

The light and heat of the universe comes from the sun, and its cold and darkness from the withdrawal of the sun.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing.

The vivacity and brightness of colors in a landscape will never bear any comparison with a landscape in nature when it is illumined by the sun, unless the painting is placed in such a position that it will receive the same light from the sun as does the landscape.

Look at light and admire its beauty. Close your eyes, and then look again: what you saw is no longer there; and what you will see later is not yet.

Such is the supreme folly of man that he labours so as to labour no more.