Leonardo da Vinci
He who never puts his trust in any man will never be deceived.Collection: Breakup
The moment is timeless.Collection: Moments
He who thinks little errs much.Collection: Inspirational
He who does not oppose evil......commands it to be done.Collection: Evil
Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.Collection: Fate
Everything comes from everything, and everything is made out of everything, and everything returns into everything.Collection: Return
Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.Collection: Friendship
It is ill to praise, and worse to blame, the thing which you do not understand.Collection: Understanding
Advertisers constantly invent cures to which there is no disease.Collection: Disease
Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold.Collection: Patience
Man's external form, marvellously constructed, is not much as compared with the divine soul that dwells inside that structure.Collection: Men
Learn diligence before speedy execution.Collection: Execution
If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself.Collection: Solitude
Being willing is not enough. We must do.Collection: Inspirational
Every obstacle is destroyed through rigor.Collection: Obstacles
Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in proportion as it is diminished.Collection: Proportion
When you look at a wall spotted with stains...you may discover a resemblance to various landscapes, beautiful with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees. Or again, you may see battles and figures in action, or strange faces and costumes, and an endless variety of objects which you could reduce to complete and well-drawn figures.Collection: Beautiful
Nature varies the seed according to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the world.Collection: Nature
A life well used procures a happy death.Collection: Used
To me it seems that those sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, first-hand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has passed through one of the five senses.Collection: Mother
I say that the power of vision extends through the visual rays to the surface of non-transparent bodies, while the power possessed by these bodies extends to the power of vision.Collection: Nature
The organ of perception acts more readily than judgment.Collection: Perception
He who draws... ought to take his position so that the eye of the figure he is drawing is on a level with his own... because, generally, figures or people whom you meet in the streets all have their eyes at the same level as yours, and if you make them higher or lower you will find that your portrait will not resemble them.Collection: Eye
He who wishes to see how the soul inhabits the body should look to see how that body uses its daily surroundings. If the dwelling is dirty and neglected, the body will be kept by its soul in the same condition, dirty and neglected.Collection: Dirty
There are three aspects to perspective. The first has to do with how the size of objects seems to diminish according to distance: the second, the manner in which colors change the farther away they are from the eye; the third defines how objects ought to be finished less carefully the farther away they are.Collection: Distance
It reflects no great honor on a painter to be able to execute only one thing well -- such as a head, an academy figure, or draperies, animals, landscapes, or the like -- in other words, confining himself to some particular object of study. This is so because there is scarcely a person so devoid of genius as to fail of success if he applies himself earnestly to one branch of study and practices it continually.Collection: Animal
O painter, take care lest the greed for gain prove a stronger incentive than renown in art, for to gain this renown is a far greater thing than is the renown of riches.Collection: Art
... we might say that the earth has a spirit of growth; that its flesh is the soil, its bones the arrangement and connection of the rocks of which the mountains are composed, its cartilage the tufa, and its blood the springs of water.Collection: Nature
Surely when a man is painting a picture he ought not refuse to hear any man's opinion... Since men are able to form a true judgement as to the works of nature, how much more does it behoove us to admit that they are able to judge our faults.Collection: Men
Given the cause nature produces the effect in the briefest manner that it can employ.Collection: Nature
Of the original phenomena, light is the most enthralling.Collection: Light
Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.Collection: Judging
Make yourself a master of perspective, then acquire perfect knowledge of the proportions of men and other animals.Collection: Animal
What induces you, oh man, to depart from your home in town, to leave parents and friends, and go to the countryside over mountains and valleys, if it is not for the beauty of the world of nature?Collection: Nature
That which can be lost cannot be deemed riches.Collection: Riches
When taking a selfie, remember the most natural pose is still bestCollection: Remember
Those who are enamoured of practice without science are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass and never has any certainty of where he is going. Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory.Collection: Practice
Where there is most feeling, there is the greatest martyrdom.Collection: Intelligent
The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.Collection: Book
Therefore, O students, study mathematics and do not build without foundations.Collection: Science
We must doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, but how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and the soul.Collection: Soul
To lie is vile, to tell truth is excellent, if not noble.Collection: Lying
Good writing comes from good talent.Collection: Writing
Among the great things which are found among us the existence of Nothing is the greatest.Collection: Spiritual
When Fortune comes, seize her in front with a sure hand, because behind she is bald.Collection: Hands
Not to anticipate is already to moan.Collection: Anticipation
A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.Collection: Inspirational
The worst evil which can befall the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes.Collection: Eye