Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.

Wine is good, but water is preferable at table.

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

O neglectful Nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel and ruthless stepmother? I see thy children given into slavery to others without ever receiving any benefit, and in lieu of any reward for the services they have done for them they are repaid by the severest punishments.

Surely when a man is painting a picture he ought not refuse to hear any man's opinion... Since men are able to form a true judgement as to the works of nature, how much more does it behoove us to admit that they are able to judge our faults. Therefore you should be desirous of hearing patiently the opinions of others, and consider and reflect carefully whether or no he who censures you has reason for his censure; and correct your work if you find that he is right, but if not, then let it seem that you have not understood him, or, in case he is a man whom you esteem, show him by argument why it is that he is mistaken.

The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.

Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen. These two arts, you may call them both either poetry or painting, have here interchanged the senses by which they penetrate to the intellect.

That which has no limitations, has no form. The limitations of two conterminous bodies are interchangeably the surface of each. All the surfaces of a body are not parts of that body.

The city will gain beauty worthy of its name and to you it will be useful by its revenues, and the eternal fame of its aggrandizement.

Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.

Nuestra vida está hecha de la muerte de otros

The memory of benefits is a frail defence against ingratitude.

First, of things relating to animals; secondly, of irrational creatures; thirdly of plants; fourthly, of ceremonies; fifthly, of manners; sixthly, of cases or edicts or quarrels; seventhly, of cases that are impossible in nature [paradoxes], as, for instance, of those things which, the more is taken from them, the more they grow. And reserve the great matters till the end, and the small matters give at the beginning.

Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in proportion as it is diminished.

I give the degrees of things seen by the eye as the musician does of the sounds heard by the ear.