Top 450 Leonardo da Vinci Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “If anyone wishes to see how the soul dwells in its body, let him observe how this body uses its daily habitation; that is to say, if this is devoid of order and confused, the body will be kept in disorder and confusion by its soul...”

— Leonardo da Vinci

352. “The earth is moved from its position by the weight of a tiny bird resting upon it.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

353. “The painter or draftsman ought to be solitary, in order that the well-being of the body not sap the vigour of the mind.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

354. “The water which rises in the mountain is the blood which keeps the mountain in life.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

355. “The imagination is to the effect as the shadow to the opaque body which causes the shadow.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

356. “What induces you, oh man, to depart from your home in town, to leave parents and friends, and go to the countryside over mountains and valleys, if it is not for the beauty of the world of nature?”

— Leonardo da Vinci

357. “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.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

358. “Old age takes in part savoury wisdom for its food – see to that your old age will not lack in nourishment.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

359. “O admirable necessity! O powerful action! What mind can penetrate your nature? What language can express this marvel? None, to be sure. This is where human discourse turns toward the contemplation of the divine.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

360. “Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

361. “I am still hopeful. A falcon, Time. But the coincidence is probably accidental.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

362. “Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

363. “No one should ever imitate the style of another because, with regard to art, he will be called a nephew and not a child of nature.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

364. “Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

365. “There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

366. “To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

367. “Thirst will parch your tongue and your body will waste through lack of sleep ere you can describe in words that which painting instantly sets before the eye.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

368. “It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

369. “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.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

370. “Abbreviators do harm to knowledge and to love.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

371. “Experience never misleads; what you are misled by is only your judgment, and this misleads you by anticipating results from experience of a kind that is not produced by your experiments.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

372. “In the days of thy youth seek to obtain that which shall compensate the losses of thy old age.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

373. “Each man is always in the middle of the surface of the earth and under the zenith of his own hemisphere, and over the centre of the earth.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

374. “If we make mistakes in our first compositions and do not know them, we may not amend them.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

375. “Perspective is a most subtle discovery in mathematical studies, for by means of lines it causes to appear distant that which is near, and large that which is small.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

376. “Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occassion of folly.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

377. “The mole has very small eyes and it always lives under ground; and it lives as long as it is in the dark but when it comes into the light it dies immediately, because it becomes known; – and so it is with lies.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

378. “Every man at three years old is half his height.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

379. “Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

380. “I say that the power of vision extends through the visual rays to the surface of non-transparent bodies, while the power possessed by these bodies extends to the power of vision.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

381. “How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever-lasting.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

382. “One shall be born from small beginnings which will rapidly become vast. This will respect no created thing, rather will it, by its power, transform almost every thing from its own nature into another.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

383. “Happy will be those who give ear to the words of the dead: – The reading of good works and the observing of their precepts.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

384. “O painter, take care lest the greed for gain prove a stronger incentive than renown in art, for to gain this renown is a far greater thing than is the renown of riches.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

385. “Those who condemn the supreme certainty of mathematics feed on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of the sophistical sciences which lead to eternal quackery.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

386. “Movement will fail sooner than usefulness.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

387. “Nothing is more apt to deceive us than our own judgment of our work. We derive more benefit from having our faults pointed out by our enemies than from hearing the opinions of friends.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

388. “True and great love springs out of great knowledge, and where you know little you can love but little or not at all.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

389. “Nothing will be left, Nothing in the air, nothing under the earth, nothing in the waters. All will be exterminated.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

390. “The fame of the rich man dies with him; the fame of the treasure, and not of the man who possessed it, remains.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

391. “Why are the bones of great fishes, and oysters and corals and various other shells and sea-snails, found on the high tops of mountains that border the sea, in the same way in which they are found in the depths of the sea?”

— Leonardo da Vinci

392. “The lover is moved by the beloved object as the senses are by sensual objects; and they unite and become one and the same thing. The work is the first thing born of this union; if the thing loved is base the lover becomes base.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

393. “The vine that has grown old on an old tree falls with the ruin of that tree, and through that bad companionship must perish with it.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

394. “The bones of the Dead will be seen to govern the fortunes of him who moves them.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

395. “One day the world will look upon research upon animals as it now looks upon research on human beings.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

396. “Make your faces so that they do not all have the same expression, as one sees with most painters, but give them different expression, according to age, complexion, and good or bad character.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

397. “Every loss which we incur leaves behind it vexation in the memory, save the greatest loss of all, that is, death, which annihilates the memory, together with life.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

398. “How painting surpasses all human works by reason of the subtle possibilities which it contains.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

399. “It reflects no great honour on a painter to be able to execute one thing well.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

400. “It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail against my lips.”

— Leonardo da Vinci