Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

Leonardo da Vinci was a leading artist and intellectual of the Italian Renaissance who's known for his enduring works "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa."

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

49. “As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.”

48. “Life well spent is long.”

47. “Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory.”

46. “Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”

Read Leonardo's Notebooks: Writing and Art of the Great Master

45. “It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”

44. “Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature.”

43. “Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy — on experience, the mistress of their Masters.”

42. “Those men who are inventors and interpreters between Nature and Man, as compared with boasters and declaimers of the works of others, must be regarded and not otherwise esteemed than as the object in front of a mirror, when compared with its image seen in the mirror.”

41. “The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.”

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40. “The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.”

39. “The smallest natural point is larger than all mathematical points, and this is proved because the natural point has continuity, and any thing that is continuous is infinitely divisible; but the mathematical point is indivisible because it has no size.”

38. “Nothing is that which fills no space.”

37. “That which has no limitations, has no form.”

36. “The boundaries of bodies are the least of all things.”

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

34. “All objects transmit their image to the eye in pyramids, and the nearer to the eye these pyramids are intersected the smaller will the image appear of the objects which cause them.”

33. “The instant the atmosphere is illuminated it will be filled with an infinite number of images which are produced by the various bodies and colours assembled in it. And the eye is the target, a lodestone, of these images.”

32. “All bodies together, and each by itself, give off to the surrounding air an infinite number of images which are all-pervading and each complete, each conveying the nature, colour and form of the body which produces it.”

31. “The body of the atmosphere is full of infinite radiating pyramids produced by the objects existing in it.”

Read Leonardo: The Artist and the Man

Mona Lisa (1503–1505/1507)

30. “All objects project their whole image and likeness, diffused and mingled in the whole of the atmosphere, opposite to themselves.”

29. “Shadow is not the absence of light, merely the obstruction of the luminous rays by an opaque body.”

28. “Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light.”

27. “Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.”

26. “Light is the chaser away of darkness. Shade is the obstruction of light.”

25. “A dark object seen against a bright background will appear smaller than it is. A light object will look larger when it is seen against a background darker than itself.”

24. “The variety of colour in objects cannot be discerned at a great distance, excepting in those parts which are directly lighted up by the solar rays.”

23. “The atmosphere is blue by reason of the darkness above it because black and white make blue.”

22. “The sun gives spirit and life to plants and the earth nourishes them with moisture.”

21. “Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.”

Read Journal of Inventions: Leonardo da Vinci

The Vitruvian Man (c. 1485)

20. “A picture or representation of human figures, ought to be done in such a way as that the spectator may easily recognize, by means of their attitudes, the purpose in their minds.”

19. “When you wish to represent a man speaking to a number of people, consider the matter of which he has to treat and adapt his action to the subject.”

18. “The motions of men must be such as suggest their dignity or their baseness.”

17. “Represent your figures in such action as may be fitted to express what purpose is in the mind of each; otherwise your art will not be admirable.”

16. “What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art.”

15. “We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God.”

14. “Fire destroys falsehood, that is sophistry, and restores truth, driving out darkness.”

13. “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.”

12. “Movement will cease before we are weary of being useful.”

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

Read Leonardo's Brain: Understanding Da Vinci's Creative Genius

The Last Supper (1498)

10. “Nothing is so much to be feared as Evil Report.v”

9. “The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united with them.”

8. “Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.”

7. “Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.”

6. “The motive power is the cause of all life.”

5. “The part always has a tendency to reunite with its whole in order to escape from its imperfection.”

4. “Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than with the imagination being awake?”

3. “Wisdom is the daughter of experience.”

2. “Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience.”

Leonardo's drawn vehicle

1. “Truth was the only daughter of Time.”

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