Top 450 Leonardo da Vinci Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “Look at light and admire its beauty. Close your eyes, and then look again: what you saw is no longer there; and what you will see later is not yet.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

252. “For in truth great love is born of great knowledge of the thing loved.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

253. “When Fortune comes, seize her in front with a sure hand, because behind she is bald.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

254. “Wood feeds the fire which burns it.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

255. “The human bird shall take his first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

256. “Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

257. “The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

258. “It is ordained that to the ambitious, who derive no satisfaction from the gifts of life and the beauty of the world, life shall be a cause of suffering, and they shall possess neither the profit nor the beauty of the world.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

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

— Leonardo da Vinci

260. “Study me, reader, if you delight in me, because on very few occasions shall I return to the world, and because the patience for this profession is found in very few, and only in those who wish to compose things anew. Come, oh men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose to nature.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

261. “The painter’s mind is a copy of the divine mind, since it operates freely in creating the many kinds of animals, plants, fruits, landscapes, countrysides, ruins, and awe-inspiring places.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

262. “Drawing is based upon perspective, which is nothing else than a thorough knowledge of the function of the eye.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

263. “We might say that the earth has the spirit of growth; that its flesh is the soil.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

264. “Black is like a broken vessel, which is deprived of the capacity to contain anything.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

265. “Constancy does not begin, but is that which perseveres.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

266. “To be a winner you must want to win but must know of the chance of losing and must not fear of it.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

267. “A long life is a life well spent.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

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

— Leonardo da Vinci

269. “The soul can never be corrupted with the corruption of the body, but it is like the wind which causes the sound of the organ, and which ceases to produce a good effect when a pipe is spoilt.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

270. “Even the richest soil, if left uncultivated will produce the rankest weeds.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

271. “Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

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

— Leonardo da Vinci

273. “A good painter has two main objects to paint, man and the intention of his soul. The former is easy, the latter hard as he has to represent it by the attitude and movement of the limbs.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

274. “Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

275. “Perspective is the rein and rudder of painting.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

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

— Leonardo da Vinci

277. “Of the four elements water is the second in weight and the second in respect of mobility. It is never at rest until it unites with the sea...”

— Leonardo da Vinci

278. “One’s thoughts turn towards Hope.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

279. “He who in reasoning cites authority is making use of his memory rather than of his intellect.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

280. “A painter was asked why, since he made such beautiful figures, which were but dead things, his children were so ugly; to which the painter replied that he made his pictures by day, and his children by night.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

281. “Fire destroys all sophistry, that is deceit; and maintains truth alone, that is gold.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

282. “It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

283. “Love shows itself more in adversitythan in prosperity; as light does, which shines most where the place isdarkest.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

284. “I have wasted my hours.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

285. “The eye – which sees all objects reversed – retains the images for some time.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

286. “You should prefer a good scientist without literary abilities than a literate one without scientific skills.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

287. “Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the memory by not assimilating what it absorbs.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

288. “Slender certainty is better than portentous falsehood.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

289. “A natural action is accomplished in the briefest manner.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

290. “Fame alone raises herself to Heaven, because virtuous things are in favour with God.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

291. “Love, Fear, and Esteem, – Write these on three stones.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

292. “Especially learn how to see.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

293. “Fear arises sooner than anything else.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

294. “Necessity is a guardian in Nature.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

295. “Make an effort to collect the good features from many beautiful faces.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

296. “When the thing taken into union is perfectly adapted to that which receives it, the result is delight and pleasure and satisfaction.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

297. “While you are alone you are entirely your own master and if you have one companion you are but half your own, and the less so in proportion to the indiscretion of his behavior.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

298. “Threats alone, are the weapons of the threatened man.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

299. “A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

300. “O sleepers! what a thing is slumber! Sleep resembles death. Ah, why then dost thou not work in such wise as that after death thou mayst retain a resemblance to perfect life, when, during life, thou art in sleep so like to the hapless dead?”

— Leonardo da Vinci