Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci

About Leonardo da Vinci:

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived in the Western world. He is often referred to as the Father of paleontology, ichnology and architecture. Sometimes he is credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank.
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People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those who do not see.

Leonardo da Vinci

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

Leonardo da Vinci

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

There are four Powers: memory and intellect, desire and covetousness. The two first are mental and the others sensual. The three senses: sight, hearing and smell cannot well be prevented; touch and taste not at all.

Leonardo da Vinci

Medicine is the restoration of discordant elements; sickness is the discord of the elements infused into the living body.

Leonardo da Vinci

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

Leonardo da Vinci

The length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height.

Leonardo da Vinci

The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.

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

I have wasted my hours.

Leonardo da Vinci

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.

Leonardo da Vinci

The spirit desires to remain with its body, because, without the organic instruments of that body, it can neither act, nor feel anything.

Leonardo da Vinci

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

Leonardo da Vinci

The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of co...

Leonardo da Vinci

I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.

Leonardo da Vinci

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

Weight, force and casual impulse, together with resistance, are the four external powers in which all the visible actions of mortals have their being and their end.

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

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

Leonardo da Vinci

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

Leonardo da Vinci

The senses are of the earth, the reason stands apart from them in contemplation.

Leonardo da Vinci

Author Bio

  • NameLeonardo da Vinci
  • DescriptionItalian Renaissance polymath
  • AliasesLeonardo; da Vinci
  • BornApril 15, 1452
  • DiedMay 2, 1519
  • CountryRepublic Of Florence
  • ProfessionPainter; Engineer; Astronomer; Philosopher; Anatomist; Mathematician; Sculptor; Polymath; Architect; Civil Engineer; Diplomat; Inventor; Composer
  • WorksAdoration Of The Magi; Virgin Of The Rocks; Mona Lisa; The Last Supper; Lady With An Ermine; Vitruvian Man; Annunciation; St. Jerome In The Wilderness; The Virgin And Child With St. Anne; St. John The Baptist