Leonardo da Vinci

Polymath, artist, inventor, scientist

Early Modern influential 87 sayings

Sayings by Leonardo da Vinci

He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Oh! how many are the times that I have been deceived!

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies everything placed in front of it without understanding.

c. 1490s — Treatise on Painting
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

To develop a complete mind: Study the art of science; Study the science of art. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The wise man will want to be rich only in order to be able to help himself and his friends.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The greatest pleasure and the greatest knowledge is to understand how we are born.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The sun does not see its shadow.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Man has a body, but no soul.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Birds, being provided with wings, can always fly where they wish, and so can men, if they have wings.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The senses are of the earth, reason is of the soul.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The eye is the first organ that comes into contact with the light.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

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.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The more subtle we are, the more we are deceived.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The memory of all that is past is as nothing in comparison with the knowledge of what is to come.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The greatest good is that which is desired by all.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The earth is not the center of the sun, but the sun is the center of the earth.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The mind of the painter is a mirror of the world.

c. 1490s — Treatise on Painting
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Life well spent is long.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Nature never breaks her own laws.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable