Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo, was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance whose areas of interest included invention, drawing, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of paleontology, ichnology, and architecture, and he is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time.
Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter, and tank, he epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the “Universal Genius” or “Renaissance Man”, an individual of “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imagination”, and he is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived.
Some of the best quotes from Leonardo da Vinci are listed below.
- “A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “A diamond is just a lump of coal that stuck to its job.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “A wave is never found alone, but is mingled with the other waves.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “All thoughts start from emotions.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “An arch consists of two weaknesses which, leaning one against the other, make a strength.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used 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
- “As you cannot do what you want, want what you can do.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Be a mirror, absorb everything around you and still remain the same.” – 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. Open your eyes.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Experience is a truer guide than the words of others.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “For, verily, great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it, you will be able to love it only little or not at all.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “He who can copy can do.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “He who does not oppose evil, commands it to be done.” – 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 thinks little errs much.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “He who truly knows has no occasion to shout.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “I am not poor. Poor are those who desire many things.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.” – 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 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 time and with water, everything changes.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors 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 is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings a blessed death.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Learning is the only thing that never disappoints us.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.” – 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
- “Life without love, is no life at all.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Love shows itself more in adversity than in prosperity; as light does, which shines most where the place is darkest.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Man’s external form, marvellously constructed, is not much as compared with the divine soul that dwells inside that structure.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Nature never breaks her own laws.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Once you have tasted the taste of sky, you will forever look up.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “One can have no more mastery over the environment, than one has over himself.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “One has no right to love or hate anything if one has not acquired a thorough knowledge of its nature.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Painting is concerned with all the 10 attributes of sight; which are: Darkness, Light, Solidity and Colour, Form and Position, Distance and Propinquity, Motion and Rest.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Realize that everything connects to everything else.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “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.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “The deeper the feeling, the greater the pain.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “The knowledge of all things is possible.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “The natural desire of good men is knowledge.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.” – 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
- “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
- “Time abides long enough for those who make use of it.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “To be a winner you must want to win but must know of the chance of losing and must not fear of it.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Virtue is our true wealth and the true reward of its possessor; it cannot be lost, it never deserts us until life leaves us.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Whatever you do in life, if you want to be creative and intelligent, and develop your brain, you must do everything with the awareness that everything, in some way, connects to everything else.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “When 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.” – 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
- “Whoever does not respect life, does not deserve it.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Why does the eye see more clearly when asleep than the imagination when awake?” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Wisdom is the daughter of experience.” – 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
- “You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself…the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. …And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- “Your brain is much better than you think; just use it!” – Leonardo da Vinci
Listen to this article
