Top 15 Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

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.

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.

I love those who can smile in trouble...

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.

Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.