Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci

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
Wisdom Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Wisdom 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
Art & Creativity 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
Educational Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Money & Business Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Educational Unverifiable

The sun does not see its shadow.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Nature & World Unverifiable

Man has a body, but no soul.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Biblical Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Wisdom Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Biblical Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Wisdom 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
Nature & World Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Wisdom Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Educational Unverifiable

The greatest good is that which is desired by all.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Wisdom Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Nature & World Unverifiable

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

c. 1490s — Treatise on Painting
Art & Creativity Unverifiable

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

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Money & Business Unverifiable

Life well spent is long.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Wisdom Unverifiable

Nature never breaks her own laws.

c. 1500s — Notebooks
Nature & World Unverifiable
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