Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

The mirror is our teacher.

In der Einfachheit liegt die größte Vollendung

Animals will be seen on the earth who will always be fighting against each other with the greatest loss and frequent deaths on each side. And there will be no end to their malignity; by their strong limbs we shall see a great portion of the trees of the vast forests laid low throughout the universe; and, when they are filled with food the satisfaction of their desires will be to deal death and grief and labour and wars and fury to every living thing; and from their immoderate pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but the too great weight of their limbs will keep them down. Nothing will remain on earth, or under the earth or in the waters which will not be persecuted, disturbed and spoiled, and those of one country removed into another. And their bodies will become the sepulture and means of transit of all they have killed.

O Earth! why dost thou not open and engulf them in the fissures of thy vast abyss and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven such a cruel and horrible monster?

May it please our great Author that I may demonstrate the nature of man and his customs, in the way I describe his figure.

The soul seems to reside in the judgment, and the judgment would seem to be seated in that part where all the senses meet; and this is called the Common Sense and is not all-pervading throughout the body, as many have thought. Rather is it entirely in one part. Because, if it were all-pervading and the same in every part, there would have been no need to make the instruments of the senses meet in one centre and in one single spot; on the contrary it would have sufficed that the eye should fulfil the function of its sensation on its surface only, and not transmit the image of the things seen, to the sense, by means of the optic nerves, so that the soul — for the reason given above — may perceive it in the surface of the eye.

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

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

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

Quando ouvimos os sinos, ouvimos aquilo que já trazemos em nós mesmos como modelo. Sou da opinião que não se deverá desprezar aquele que olhar atentamente para as manchas da parede, para os carvões sobre a grelha, para as nuvens, ou para a correnteza da água, descobrindo, assim, coisas maravilhosas. O génio do pintor há-de se apossar de todas essas coisas para criar composições diversas: luta de homens e de animais, paisagens, monstros, demónios e outras coisas fantásticas. Tudo, enfim, servirá para engrandecer o artista.

We do not lack devices for measuring these miserable days of ours, in which it should be our pleasure that they be not frittered away without leaving behind any memory of ourselves in the mind of men.

While I thought I have been learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

I am fully conscious that, not being a literary man , certain presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me; alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks! do they not know that I might retort as Marius did to the Roman Patricians by saying: That they, who deck themselves out in the labours of others will not allow me my own. They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of, but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than by words; and experience has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases.

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

The air moves like a river and carries the clouds with it; just as running water carries all the things that float upon it.

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