Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

As iron rusts when not used, and water gets foul from standing or turns to ice when exposed to cold, so the intellect degenerates without exercise.
-Leonard Da Vinci

Obstacles cannot crush me...he who is fixed to a star does not change his mind

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.
Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

"Everything in some way connects to everything else".

Leonardo Da Vinci

The abbreviators of works do injury to knowledge and to love.Of what value is he who,in order to abbreviate the parts of those things of which he professes to give complete knowledge,leaves out the greater part of the things of which the whole is composed?Oh human stupidity!You don’t see that you are falling into the same error as one who strips a tree of its adornment of branches full of leaves,intermingled with fragrant flowers or fruit in order to demonstrate that the tree is good for making planks

Most people, if you give them a book, they sniff around on it awhile, then try to eat it.

That which can be lost cannot be deemed riches. Virtue is our true wealth and the true reward of its possessor; it cannot be lost, it never deserts us until life leaves us. Hold property and external riches with fear; they often leave their possessor scorned and mocked at for having lost them.

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.

„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.

Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen.

There is nothing which deceives us as much as our own judgement.

Fine gold is recognized when it is tested.

art is never finished, only abandoned

Whatever — the soup is getting cold.

[Last sentence of a mathematical theorem in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, 1518]