Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci (Italian Polymath)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519,) fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, was a prolific Italian painter, sculptor, scientist, engineer, inventor, and polymath. This great Italian Renaissance genius of art and science is often regarded as history’s most creative genius.

The man who painted the celebrated portrait “Mona Lisa” (1504–05) and the renowned mural “The Last Supper” (1498) was a fountainhead of inquiry and creativity in anatomy, mechanics, art, gravity, optics, music, birds, flying machines, geology, weaponry, the human heart. He reached across the disciplines of science, art, humanities, and technology like no one before and few since.

Born in the village of Anchiano near the Tuscan town of Vinci, Leonardo was the illicit son of a Florentine notary and a peasant girl. He apprenticed as a sculptor and painter before he moved to Milan to work for the ruling Sforza family as an engineer, sculptor, painter, and architect. Subsequently, he lived in Florence, Rome, and France.

Leonardo ‘invented’ the bicycle, the airplane, helicopter, and parachute some 500 years before their time. He articulated his science through his art—his scrupulously observed sketches in 3,500 pages of his nineteen notebooks show what he represented, and how he understood the world to work.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Leonardo da Vinci

He turns not back who is bound to a star.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Commitment, Resolve, Goals, Perseverance, Dedication, Aspirations, Endurance

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Beginning

Water is the driver of Nature
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: One liners, Water

The mole has very small eyes and it always lives under ground; and it lives as long as it is in the dark but when it comes into the light it dies immediately, because it becomes known;—and so it is with lies.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Deception/Lying

The desire to know is natural to good men.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Wisdom, Learning, Desire

The color of the object illuminated partakes of the color of that which illuminates it.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Knowledge

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

Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Envy

God sells us all things at the price of labor.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Work, Labor, One liners

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
—Leonardo da Vinci

Perspective is the rein and rudder of painting.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Perspective

Just as courage imperils life; fear protects it.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Anxiety, Fear

Life well spent is long.
—Leonardo da Vinci

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.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: The Mind, Action, Mind

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Death, Happiness, Dying

To me it seems that those sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, first hand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has passed through one of the five senses.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Wisdom

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Passion

The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Mankind, Body, Man

Our life is made by the death of others.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Life, Living

Common sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Common Sense, Common Sense

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.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Wildlife, Water

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.
—Leonardo da Vinci

Every now and then go away, even briefly. Have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power.
—Leonardo da Vinci

Art is never finished, only abandoned.
—Leonardo da Vinci

Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Necessity, Nature

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: The Mind, Mind

Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Goal, Purpose

Art is the Queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Art

Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Topics: Education

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
Topics: Patience

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