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Leonardo da Vinci Quotes: 23

  • 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.

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

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

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

  • The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.

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

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

  • 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.

  • Art is never finished, only abandoned.

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

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

  • 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.

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

  • The knowledge of all things is possible

  • Realize that everything connects to everything else.

  • All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions

  • Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose

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

    Leonardo's Notebooks
  • Our life is made by the death of others.

  • 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.

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

  • Wisdom is the daughter of experience