Leonardo da Vinci Quotes, Status, and Thoughts

Beauty perishes in life, but is immortal in art.

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

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

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

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.

Experience is a truer guide than the words of others.

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

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

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 possesses most must be most afraid of loss.

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

My body will not be a tomb for other creatures.

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

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

Our life is made by the death of others.

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

He who thinks little errs much…

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

God sells us all things at the price of labor.

Water is the driving force in nature.

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

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

Time stays long enough for those who use it.

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.

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

The deeper the feeling, the greater the pain

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

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.

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.

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

Realize that everything connects to everything else.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

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

Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.

The knowledge of all things is possible.

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.

All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

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

He who truly knows has no occasion to shout.

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.

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

A well-spent day brings happy sleep.

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

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.

Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.

Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose.

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

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

He who thinks little errs much.

In time and with water, everything changes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life without love, is no life at all.

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

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.

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

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

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

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.

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

Life well spent is long.

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

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

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

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