Often attributed to Giorgio Vasari, while in the text Vasari attributes these words to Leonardo da Vinci in: Giorgio Vasari. Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects as translated by Mrs. Jonathan Foster (1852), Vol. 2;
Misattributed
“Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.”
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Leonardo Da Vinci 363
Italian Renaissance polymath 1452–1519Related quotes
True genius without heart is a thing of nought - for not great understanding alone, not intelligence alone, nor both together, make genius. Love! Love! Love! that is the soul of genius. - Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, entry in Mozart's souvenir album (1787-04-11) from Mozart: A Life by Maynard Solomon [Harper-Collins, 1966, ISBN 0-060-92692-9], p. 312.
Misattributed
“Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.”
Book III, Ch. 11. Of Cripples
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 2: The Place of Science in a Liberal Education
“Lofty posts make great men greater still, and small men much smaller.”
Ainsi les postes éminents rendent les grands hommes encore plus grands, et les petits beaucoup plus petits.
Aphorism 95
Les Caractères (1688), De l'Homme
Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 79.
No. 416
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)