Leonardo da Vinci Inspirational Quotations

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.

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.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

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

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

Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.

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.

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

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

Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.

As you cannot do what you want, Want what you can do

once you have tasted the taste of sky, you will forever look up

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

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing.

Ask advice of him who governs himself well.

The lover is moved by the thing loved, as the sense is by that which perceives, and it unites with it and they become one and the same thing... when the lover is united with the beloved it finds rest there; when the burden is laid down there it finds rest.

Those who condemn the supreme certainty of mathematics feed on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of the sophistical sciences which lead to eternal quackery.

Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings a blessed death.

Life well spent is long.

Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.

I love those who can smile in trouble...

He who thinks little errs much…

Just as eating against one's will is injurious to health, so studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

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

The knowledge of all things is possible

life without love, is no life at all

The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.

A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.

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.

Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose

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

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Being willing is not enough. We must do.

Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.