Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.

“Experience does not err. Only your judgements err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

Life well spent is long.

Once you have tasted the taste of sky, you will forever look up.

The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.

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

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

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. It’s the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings a blessed death.

Life without love, is no life at all.

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

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

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.

A wave is never found alone, but is mingled with the other waves.

You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.

As you cannot do what you want, want what you can do.

In time and with water, everything changes.

He who thinks little errs much.

Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.

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

Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose.

Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.

There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.

A well-spent day brings happy sleep.

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

Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind.

He who truly knows has no occasion to shout.

Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.

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.

The knowledge of all things is possible.

Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.

Why does the eye see more clearly when asleep than the imagination when awake?

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Realize that everything connects to everything else.

Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve.

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.

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.

“I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.

The deeper the feeling, the greater the pain

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.

Time stays long enough for those who use it.

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

Water is the driving force in nature.

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

All sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, the mother of all Knowledge.

He who thinks little errs much…

A poet knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Our life is made by the death of others.

Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!

He who wishes to be rich within a day, will be hanged within a year.

My body will not be a tomb for other creatures.

Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

He who does not oppose evil......commands it to be done.

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.

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

The mind that engages in subjects of too great variety becomes confused and weakened.

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.

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.

The acquisition of knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.

Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.

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

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.

Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.

If you find from your own experience that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written down, then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings.

Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.

The worst evil which can befall the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes.

He is a poor pupil who does not go beyond his master.

He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done.

We must doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, but how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and the soul.

Those who, in debate, appeal to their qualifications, argue from memory, not from understanding.

Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art

The human bird shall take his first flight,filling the words with amazement,all writings with his fame,and bringing eternal glory to those whose nest whence he sprang.

It is an acknowledged fact that we perceive errors in the work of others more readily than in our own.

Whatever you do in life, if you want to be creative and intelligent, and develop your brain, you must do everything with the awareness that everything, in some way, connects to everything else. Leonardo da Vinci

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

Be a mirror, absorb everything around you and still remain the same

It's not enough that you believe what you see. You must also understand what you see.

Experience is a truer guide than the words of others.

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.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

I am not poor. Poor are those who desire many things.

Your brain is much better than you think; just use it!

Beauty perishes in life, but is immortal in art.