A wonderful collection of quotes from Leonardo da Vinci, each fantastic

Mike Ciavarella's picture

A well-spent day brings happy
sleep.
Leonardo da Vinci

All our knowledge has its origins
in our perceptions.
Leonardo da Vinci

Although nature
commences with reason and ends in experience it is
necessary for
us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience
and
from this to proceed to investigate the reason.
Leonardo da
Vinci

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

Art is never finished, only
abandoned.
Leonardo da Vinci

As a well-spent day brings
happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy
death.
Leonardo
da Vinci

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

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

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

Common Sense is that which judges
the things given to it by other senses.
Leonardo da
Vinci

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by
expecting from her
what is not in her power.
Leonardo da
Vinci

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth
with your eyes
turned skywards, for there you have been and there
you will long to
return.
Leonardo da Vinci

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

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.
Leonardo da Vinci

He who wishes to be rich in a day
will be hanged in a year.
Leonardo da Vinci

Human subtlety
will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple
or more
direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is
lacking,
and nothing is superfluous.
Leonardo da Vinci

I have been
impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough;
we
must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.
Leonardo da
Vinci

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

I
have wasted my hours.
Leonardo da Vinci

I love those who
can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from
distress, and
grow brave by reflection. 'Tis 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.
Leonardo
da Vinci

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.
Leonardo da Vinci

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses
its purity from stagnation... even so
does inaction sap the vigor
of the mind.
Leonardo da Vinci

Iron rusts from disuse;
water loses its purity from stagnation... even so
does inaction
sap the vigour of the mind.
Leonardo da Vinci

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.
Leonardo da Vinci

It's easier to resist at the
beginning than at the end.
Leonardo da Vinci

Just as
courage imperils life, fear protects it.
Leonardo da
Vinci

Learning never exhausts the mind.
Leonardo da
Vinci

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.
Leonardo da Vinci

Life well spent is
long.
Leonardo da Vinci

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

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least
work are most active.
Leonardo da Vinci

Nature never breaks
her own laws.
Leonardo da Vinci

Nothing strengthens
authority so much as silence.
Leonardo da Vinci

Our life is
made by the death of others.
Leonardo da Vinci

Simplicity
is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci

The
function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case
of
the genitals and the tongue.
Leonardo da Vinci

The
greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
Leonardo
da Vinci

The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a
work of art.
Leonardo da Vinci

The noblest pleasure is the
joy of understanding.
Leonardo da Vinci

The poet ranks far
below the painter in the representation of visible
things, and far
below the musician in that of invisible things.
Leonardo da
Vinci

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
Leonardo da
Vinci

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior
intellects.
Leonardo da Vinci

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

Time stays long enough
for anyone who will use it.
Leonardo da Vinci

Water is the
driving force of all nature.
Leonardo da Vinci

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

Where there is shouting, there is no true
knowledge.
Leonardo da Vinci

While I thought that I was
learning how to live, I have been learning how
to die.
Leonardo
da Vinci

Who sows virtue reaps honor.
Leonardo da
Vinci

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than
the imagination
when awake?
Leonardo da Vinci

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

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