Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man,and is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person that ever lived...(read more here)

Here are a picks of  some of his many quotes:

Leonardo; A Man of Action

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

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.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

He who walks straight rarely falls.

Where there is most feeling, there is the greatest martyrdom.


Leonardo; A Man of Experience

Learning never exhausts the mind.

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

“Experience, the mother of all Knowledge.”

“Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.”

“The organ of perception acts more readily than judgment.”


Leonardo; A Man of Vision

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.”

“Average human “looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fragrance, and talks without thinking.”

“Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”


Leonardo; The Artist

“The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.”

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.

 “Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose”

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.
  
Leonardo; The Man

“My body will not be a tomb for other creatures.”

“We must doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, but how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and the soul.”

There will be many men who will move one against another, holding in their hands a cutting tool. But these will not do each other any injury beyond tiring each other; for, when one pushes forward the other will draw back. But woe to him who comes between them! For he will end by being cut in pieces.