In his life Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was famous not only for his work but also for quotations and sayings, some of which are quite popular and listed here.
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The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.
Art is never finished, only abandoned.
The knowledge of all things is possible
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.
I love those who can smile in trouble...
A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.
Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always 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.
The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.
Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.
Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.
If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.
The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
Learning never exhausts the mind.
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.
Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.
As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.
Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.
All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.
Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!
Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.
Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.
He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.
He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.
Water is the driving force of all nature.
I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why thunder lasts longer than that which causes it, and why immediately on its creation the lightning becomes visible to the eye while thunder requires time to travel. These questions and other strange phenomena engaged my thought throughout my life.
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