Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)
Italian Renaissance architect, musician, inventor, engineer, sculptor, and painter.
The East will be seen to rush to the West and the South to the North in confusion round and about the universe, with great noise and trembling or fury.
There is no certainty in sciences where one of the mathematical sciences cannot be applied, or which are not in relation with these mathematics.
Where there is most feeling, there is the greatest martyrdom.
Sculptured figures which appear in motion, will, in their standing position, actually look as if they were falling forward.
The body which is nearest to the light casts the largest shadow, and why? If an object placed in front of a single light is very close to it you will see that it casts a very large shadow on the opposite wall, and the farther you remove the object from the light the smaller will the image of the shadow become.
Every instrument requires to be made by experience.
If you meet with any one who is virtuous do not drive him from you; do him honour, so that he may not have to flee from you and be reduced to hiding in hermitages, or caves or other solitary places to escape from your treachery; if there is such an one among you do him honour, for these are our Saints upon earth; these are they who deserve statues from us, and images...
I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.
Represent your figures in such action as may be fitted to express what purpose is in the mind of each; otherwise your art will not be admirable.
Fire may be represented as the destroyer of all sophistry, and as the image and demonstration of truth; because it is light and drives out darkness which conceals all essences [or subtle things].
The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.
That which has no limitations, has no form. The limitations of two conterminous bodies are interchangeably the surface of each. All the surfaces of a body are not parts of that body.
Poor is the pupil that does not surpass his master.
Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing.
To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.
When the thing taken into union is perfectly adapted to that which receives it, the result is delight and pleasure and satisfaction.
The Caladrius is a bird of which it is related that, when it is carried into the presence of a sick person, if the sick man is going to die, the bird turns away its head and never looks at him; but if the sick man is to be saved the bird never loses sight of him but is the cause of curing him of all his sickness. Like unto this is the love of virtue. It never looks at any vile or base thing, but rather clings always to pure and virtuous things and takes up its abode in a noble heart; as the birds do in green woods on flowery branches. And this Love shows itself more in adversity than in prosperity; as light does, which shines most where the place is darkest.
One's thoughts turn towards Hope.
The smallest natural point is larger than all mathematical points, and this is proved because the natural point has continuity, and any thing that is continuous is infinitely divisible; but the mathematical point is indivisible because it has no size.