"Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age."
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Quote collection
Leonardo da Vinci quotes (page 18 of 30)
583 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Of the original phenomena, light is the most enthralling."
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"Make your faces so that they do not all have the same expression, as one sees with most painters, but give them different expression, according to age, complexion, and good or bad character."
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"You should look at certain walls stained with damp, or at stones of uneven color. If you have to invent some backgrounds you will be able to see in these the likeness of divine landscapes, adorned with mountains, ruins, rocks, woods, great plains, hills and valleys in great variety; and expressions of faces and clothes and an infinity of things which you will be able to reduce to their complete and proper forms. In such walls the same thing happens as in the sound of bells, in whose stroke you may find every named word which you can imagine."
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"I have discovered that a screw-shaped device such as this, if it is well made from starched linen, will rise in the air if turned quickly."
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"A painter was asked why, since he made such beautiful figures, which were but dead things, his children were so ugly; to which the painter replied that he made his pictures by day, and his children by night."
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"Test knowledge through experience, be prepared to make mistakes, and be persistent about it."
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"Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love."
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"Very great charm of shadow and light is to be found in the faces of those who sit in the doors of dark houses. The eye of the spectator sees that part of the face which is in shadow lost in the darkness of the house, and that part of the face which is lit draws its brilliancy from the splendour of the sky. From this intensification of light and shade the face gains greatly in relief and beauty by showing the subtlest shadows in the light part and the subtlest lights in the dark part."
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"Truth was the only daughter of Time."
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"The merit of painting lies in the exactness of reproduction. Painting is a science and all sciences are based on mathematics. No human inquiry can be a science unless it pursues its path through mathematical exposition and demonstration."
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"Be eager to lend a patient ear to the opinions of others and think long and hard whether whoever finds fault has reason or not to censure you. And if the answer is yes, correct the fault. If no, give the impression that you have not heard him, or if he is a man whom you respect, explain to him why he is mistaken."
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"Medicine is the restoration of discordant elements."
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"The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me."
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"A man was desired to rise from bed because the sun was already up. He replied: "If I had as far to go and as much to do as he has, I should be up by now; but having but a little way to go, I shall not get up yet.""
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"Fire destroys all sophistry, that is deceit; and maintains truth alone, that is gold."
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"If you are on the side whence the wind is blowing you will see the trees looking much lighter than you would see them on the other sides; and this is due to the fact that the wind turns up the reverse side of the leaves which in all trees is much whiter than the upper side."
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"The first object of the painter is to make a flat plane appear as a body in relief and projecting from that plane"
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"Perspective is to painting what the bridle is to the horse, the rudder to a ship."
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"Shadows which you see with difficulty, and whose boundaries you cannot define... these you should not represent as finished or sharply defined, for the result would be that your work would seem wooden."
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