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Leonardo Da Vinci Quotes
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Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci , more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo, was an Italian Renaissance polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, he epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal.

Many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the "Universal Genius" or "Renaissance Man", an individual of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent in recorded history, and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci notes that while there is much speculation regarding his life and personality, his view of the world was logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unorthodox for his time.

Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I of France.

Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double hull. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. Some of his smaller inventions, however, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. A number of Leonardo's most practical inventions are nowadays displayed as working models at the Museum of Vinci. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.

Today, Leonardo is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived.

✵ 15. April 1452 – 2. May 1519
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Leonardo Da Vinci: 363   quotes 417   likes

Leonardo Da Vinci Quotes

“The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united with them.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XV Astronomy
Context: The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united with them. And any one standing on the moon, when it and the sun are both beneath us, would see this our earth and the element of water upon it just as we see the moon, and the earth would light it as it lights us.

Universe , Sun

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”

Leonardo Da Vinci
Learning

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

No published occurrence of such an attribution has yet been located prior to one in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre — Band 3 http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2411/pg2411.html by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Disputed
Variant: Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

Inspirational , Motivational , Deep , Leadership

“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

Leonardo Da Vinci
Art , Sense , Study , Learning

“It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

Evil

“As you cannot do what you want,
Want what you can do”

Leonardo Da Vinci

“I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), I Philosophy
Variant: While I thought I have been learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Learning

“Just as iron rusts unless it is used, and water putrifies or, in cold, turns to ice, so our intellect spoils unless it is kept in use.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: Just as iron rusts from disuse... even so does inaction spoil the intellect.

Water

“Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

Variant: Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

“Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), I Philosophy

Passion

“An average human looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fragrance, and talks without thinking.”

Leonardo Da Vinci
Feeling , Thinking

“All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Knowledge

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

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

God

“All sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, the mother of all Knowledge.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

Source: Leonardo's Notebooks

Error , Knowledge , Science

“A poet knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Leonardo Da Vinci
Perfection

“Our life is made by the death of others.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIV Anatomy, Zoology and Physiology

Life , Death

“He who thinks little, errs much.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

Chi poco pensa, molto erra.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Thinking

“Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Context: Blind ignorance misleads us thus and delights with the results of lascivious joys. Because it does not know the true light. Because it does not know what is the true light. Vain splendour takes from us the power of being.... behold! for its vain splendour we go into the fire, thus blind ignorance does mislead us. That is, blind ignorance so misleads us that... O! wretched mortals, open your eyes.

“once you have tasted the taste of sky, you will forever look up”

Leonardo Da Vinci

Source: Leonardo on Painting: An Anthology of Writings by Leonardo Da Vinci with a Selection of Documents Relating to His Career

“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations

Star , Change

“My body will not be a tomb for other creatures.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

“He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Loss

“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.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Love , Science

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

Leonardo Da Vinci

Chi non punisce il male comanda che si faccia.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.

Evil

“I awoke, only to find that the rest of the world is still asleep.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

This derives from a comment about him written by Sigmund Freud, in Leonardo Da Vinci (1916): He was like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep.
Misattributed
Source: Leonardo's Notebooks

World

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

Leonardo Da Vinci
World , Art , Communication , Knowledge

“Why does the eye see more clearly when asleep than the imagination when awake?”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than with the imagination being awake?

Imagination

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

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

“The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Love , Hate , Knowledge

“Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations

Truth , Sun

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

Leonardo Da Vinci
Intelligence , Memory

“Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude. Pharisees — that is to say, friars.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Stupidity , Falseness

“Wisdom is the daughter of experience.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: Truth was the only daughter of Time.

Wisdom , Daughters

“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.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Source: Leonardo's Notebooks

Truth , Lie , Animals , Parting

“Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.”

Leonardo Da Vinci
Death