Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

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.

King of the animals — as thou hast described him — I should rather say king of the beasts, thou being the greatest — because thou hast spared slaying them, in order that they may give thee their children for the benefit of the gullet, of which thou hast attempted to make a sepulchre for all animals; and I would say still more, if it were allowed me to speak the entire truth . But we do not go outside human matters in telling of one supreme wickedness, which does not happen among the animals of the earth, inasmuch as among them are found none who eat their own kind, unless through want of sense.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

Every instrument requires to be made by experience.

„Wenn auch der menschliche Geist durch vielfache Erfindungen mit verschiedenen Instrumenten auf dasselbe Ziel zugeht, nie wird er eine Erfindung machen, die schöner, leichter und kürzer wäre als die Natur.

My body is not a tomb for other creatures.

That is not riches, which may be lost; virtue is our true good and the true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost; that never deserts us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external riches, hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt, and mocked at for having lost them.

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.

The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present.

Life, if well spent, is long.

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.

The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.

Disgrace should be represented upside down, because all her deeds are contrary to God and tend to hell.

"There is nothing in all nature without its reason," he wrote. "If you know the reason, you do not need the experience."

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

Represent your figures in such action as may be fitted to express what purpose is in the mind of each; otherwise your art will not be admirable.