Quotes from Leonardo da Vinci

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

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.

The eye sees a thing more clearly in dreams, than the imagination awake.

What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art

Men fight wars and destroy everything around them. The earth should open and swallow them up. He who does not value life does not deserve it. Never destroy another life through rage, or through malice.

The supreme misfortune is when theory outstrips performance

A wave is never found alone, but is mingled with the other waves.

The human bird shall take his first flight,filling the words with amazement,all writings with his fame,and bringing eternal glory to those whose nest whence he sprang.

The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present. Life, if well spent, is long.

The organ of perception acts more readily than judgment.

If there's no love, what then?

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Der Augenblick ist zeitlos.

The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use. But the bee gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.

In time and with water, everything changes

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.

as a well-spent day gives, joy in sleep so a well-spent life brings, joy in dying

He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

I abhor the supreme folly of those who blame the disciples of nature in defiance of those masters who were themselves her pupils

La semplicità è la sofisticazione finale.

If the painter wishes to see beauties that charm him, it lies in his power to create them, and if he wishes to see monstrosities that are frightful, ridiculous, or truly pitiable, he is lord and God thereof.

When you put your hand in a flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come

People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and made things happen.

the love of anything is the offspring of knowledge, love being more fervent in proportion as knowledge is more certain. And this certainty springs from a complete knowledge of all parts which united compose the whole of the thing which out to be loved.