"My works are the issue of simple and plain experience which is the true mistress."
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Quote collection
Leonardo da Vinci quotes (page 19 of 30)
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"A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements, but not with a corresponding degree of strength, though it is deficient only in the power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man."
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"Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing."
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"The light and heat of the universe comes from the sun, and its cold and darkness from the withdrawal of the sun."
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"Do not imitate one another's style. If you do, so far as your art is concerned you will be called a grandson, rather than the son of Nature."
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"I would venture to affirm that a man cannot attain excellence if he satisfy the ignorant and not those of his own craft, and if he be not 'singular' or 'distant,' or whatever you like to call him."
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"Lust is the cause of generation Appetite is the support of life Fear or timidity is the prolongation of life, and Fraud the preservation of its instruments."
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"The great man presides over all his states of consciousness with obstinate rigor."
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"The fame of the rich man dies with him; the fame of the treasure, and not of the man who possessed it, remains."
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"If you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting."
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"Why seek to embarrass [the artist] with vanities foreign to his quietness? Know you not that certain sciences require the whole man, leaving no part of him at leisure for your trifles?"
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"It reflects no great honour on a painter to be able to execute one thing well."
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"The most beautiful words of love are told in silence for a look."
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"A clever man without wisdom is like a beautiful flower without fragrance."
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"Experience never misleads; what you are misled by is only your judgment, and this misleads you by anticipating results from experience of a kind that is not produced by your experiments."
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"We are deceived by promises and time disappoints us."
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"Not to appreciate life, all of life, is not to deserve it."
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"I am never weary of being useful... In serving others I cannot do enough. No labor is sufficient to tire me."
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"There are many kinds of beauty as people who possess it."
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"The natural desire of good men is knowledge."
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