Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

The organ of perception acts more readily than judgment.

Der Augenblick ist zeitlos.

The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use. But the bee gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.

To me it seems that those sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, first-hand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has passed through one of the five senses. And if we doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to these senses – ribelli ad essi sensi – such as the existence of God or of the soul or similar things over which there is always dispute and contention. And in fact it happens that whenever reason is wanting men to cry out against one another, which does not happen with certainties. For this reason we shall say that where the cry of controversy is heard, there is no true science, because the truth has one single end and when this is published, argument is destroyed for ever.

In time and with water, everything changes

When 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.

as a well-spent day gives, joy in sleep
so a well-spent life brings, joy in dying

كلما عظمت النفس الإنسانية ,زاد الحب عمقا

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

People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and made things happen.

Experience is never at fault; it is only your judgment that is in error, in promising itself such results from experience as are not caused by our experiments. For having given a beginning, what follows from it must necessarily be a natural development of such a beginning, unless it has been subject to a contrary influence, while, if it is affected by any contrary influence, the result which ought to follow from the aforesaid beginning, will be found to partake of this contrary influence in a greater or lesser degree in proportion as the said influence is more or less powerful than the aforesaid beginning.

When you put your hand in a flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come

ليس هناك ما يسمى بالمعرفة الكبرى أو المعرفة الصغرى، بل هناك نوع واحد من المعرفة وهو ذلك النوع الذى يأتى عن طريق التجريب

La semplicità è la sofisticazione finale.

I abhor the supreme folly of those who blame the disciples of nature in defiance of those masters who were themselves her pupils