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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

“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
Fear

“We must doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, but how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and the soul.”

Leonardo Da Vinci
God , Soul , Sense

“Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Context: Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power. Men wrongly complain of Experience; with great abuse they accuse her of leading them astray but they set Experience aside, turning from it with complaints as to our ignorance causing us to be carried away by vain and foolish desires to promise ourselves, in her name, things that are not in her power; saying that she is fallacious. Men are unjust in complaining of innocent Experience, constantly accusing her of error and of false evidence.

“He who can copy can do.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

“The human bird shall take his first flight, filling the words with amazement, all writings with his fame, and bringing eternal glory to those whose nest whence he sprang.”

Leonardo Da Vinci
Bird

“If there's no love, what then?”

Leonardo Da Vinci

Source: The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

Love

“I ask how far away the eye can discern a non-luminous body, as, for instance, a mountain. It will be very plainly visible if the sun is behind it; and could be seen at a greater or less distance according to the sun's place in the sky.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), IV Perspective of Disappearance

Mountain , Sun

“These rules are of use only in correcting the figures; since every man makes some mistakes in his first compositions and he who knows them not, cannot amend them. But you, knowing your errors, will correct your works and where you find mistakes amend them, and remember never to fall into them again. But if you try to apply these rules in composition you will never make an end, and will produce confusion in your works.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Error

“Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), IX The Practice of Painting

Love , Boy , Drawing

“Perspective is nothing more than a rational demonstration applied to the consideration of how objects in front of the eye transmit their image to it, by means of a pyramid of lines. The Pyramid is the name I apply to the lines which, starting from the surface and edges of each object, converge from a distance and meet in a single point.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective

“Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), III Six books on Light and Shade

Light

“The grave will fall in upon him who digs it.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

“Seeing that I can find no subject specially useful or pleasing — since the men who have come before me have taken for their own every useful or necessary theme — I must do like one who, being poor, comes last to the fair, and can find no other way of providing himself than by taking all the things already seen by other buyers, and not taken but refused by reason of their lesser value. I, then, will load my humble pack with this despised and rejected merchandise, the refuse of so many buyers; and will go about to distribute it, not indeed in great cities, but in the poorer towns, taking such a price as the wares I offer may be worth.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Men , Way

“Just as eating against one’s will is injurious to health, so studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

http://books.google.com/books?id=lFXyZLM1XxYC&pg=PT412&dq=%22Just+as+eating+against+one%E2%80%99s+will+is+injurious+to+health%22&hl=en&ei=GFRbTIjiGoL-8AbytdC4Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Just%20as%20eating%20against%20one%E2%80%99s%20will%20is%20injurious%20to%20health%22&f=false
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Health , Study , Memory

“Like a whirling wind which rushes down a sandy and hollow valley, and which, in its hasty course, drives to its centre every thing that opposes its furious course… No otherwise does the Northern blast whirl round in its tempestuous progress…”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XXI Letters. Personal Records. Dated Notes.

“Things that are separate shall be united and acquire such virtue that they will restore to man his lost memory.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

Of papyrus
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings

Memory

“If you transmit the rays of the sun through a hole in the shape of a star you will see a beautiful effect of perspective in the spot where the sun's rays fall.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), III Six books on Light and Shade

Beauty , Star , Sun

“Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

Truth , Lying

“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

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective

“Every body in light and shade fills the surrounding air with infinite images of itself; and these, by infinite pyramids diffused in the air, represent this body throughout space and on every side.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective

Light

“It is ill to praise, and worse to reprimand in matters that you do not understand.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: You do ill if you praise, and still worse if you reprove in a matter you do not understand.

Understanding

“Fire may be represented as the destroyer of all sophistry, and as the image and demonstration of truth; because it is light and drives out darkness which conceals all essences”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

Truth , Light

“No impetus created by any movement whatever can be immediately consumed, but if it finds an object which has a great resistance it consumes itself in a reflex movement.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight

“Threats alone are the weapons of the threatened man.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

“When the thing taken into union is perfectly adapted to that which receives it, the result is delight and pleasure and satisfaction.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

Pleasure

“It seems to me that men of coarse and clumsy habits and of small knowledge do not deserve such fine instruments nor so great a variety of natural mechanism as men of speculation and of great knowledge; but merely a sack in which their food may be stowed and whence it may issue, since they cannot be judged to be any thing else than vehicles for food; for it seems to me they have nothing about them of the human species but the voice and the figure, and for all the rest are much below beasts.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

Men , Food , Nature , Knowledge

“The outlines and form of any part of a body in light and shade are indistinct in the shadows and in the high lights; but in the portions between the light and the shadows they are highly conspicuous.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), III Six books on Light and Shade

Light , Parting

“A shadow will appear dark in proportion to the brilliancy of the light surrounding it and conversely it will be less conspicuous where it is seen against a darker background.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), IV Perspective of Disappearance

Light , Appearance

“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.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective

Appearance

“Of several luminous bodies of equal size and brilliancy and at an equal distance, that will look the largest which is surrounded by the darkest background.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), IV Perspective of Disappearance

“I ask at what part of its curved motion the moving cause will leave the thing moved and moveable.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XXI Letters. Personal Records. Dated Notes.

Parting

“Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

Variant translations:
Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.
As quoted in The Book of Unusual Quotations (1957) by Rudolf Flesch, p. 12
Any one who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Memory

“When that which loves is united to the thing beloved it can rest there; when the burden is laid down it finds rest there. There will be eternal fame also for the inhabitants of that town, constructed and enlarged by him.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

Love

“Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.

Study

“Impetus is a power of the mover applied in a movable thing which causes the movable thing to move after it is separated from its mover.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight

“Every instrument requires to be made by experience.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

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

Leonardo Da Vinci

Of the Tongues of Pigs and Calves in Sausage-skins.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings

Animals

“The senses are of the earth; Reason, stands apart in contemplation.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

Sense

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

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

God , Art

“The Medici created and destroyed me.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective

“The air which is struck with most swiftness by the movable thing is compressed to the greatest degree in itself.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight

“An infinite number of men will sell publicly and unhindered things of the very highest price, without leave from the Master of it; while it never was theirs nor in their power; and human justice will not prevent it.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

"Of Selling Paradise"
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings

Men , Justice

“Weight, force and casual impulse, together with resistance, are the four external powers in which all the visible actions of mortals have their being and their end.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

“Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

Life , Fear , Courage