LEONARDO DA VINCI’S QUOTES

 Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a

painting which is heard but not seen. These two arts, you may call
them both either poetry or painting, have here interchanged
the senses by which they penetrate to the intellect.
o A Treatise on Painting (1651); "The Paragone"; compiled
by Francesco Melzi prior to 1542, first published as Trattato della
pittura by Raffaelo du Fresne (1651)
 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.
o As quoted in The 48 Laws of Power (2000) by Robert Greene, p. 33
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)[edit]
These quotes are primarily from the published edition of Jean Paul
Richter (1883), as translated into English by Mrs. R. C. Bell and Edward John
Poynter
I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting[edit]
 Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my
work.
 As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy
death.
 Life well spent is long.
 Tristo é lo discepolo che non avanza il suo maestro.
 Tristo è quel discepolo che non avanza il suo maestro. (Modern
Italian)
o Poor is the pupil that does not surpass his master.
 Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.
 Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but
rather memory.
o Variant translations:
o Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is
not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.
 As quoted in The Book of Unusual Quotations (1957) by
Rudolf Flesch, p. 12
o Any one who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his
understanding, but rather his memory.
 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.
 It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
 Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature.
 Human subtlety...will never devise an invention more beautiful, more
simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions
nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.
o Richter II p. 126 no. 837 books.google
 Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by
means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics.
 I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of
my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous
conclusion.
 The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful
inventions.
 Seeing that I can find no subject specially useful or pleasing — since the
men who have come before me have taken for their own every useful or
necessary theme — I must do like one who, being poor, comes last to
 the fair, and can find no other way of providing himself than by taking
all the things already seen by other buyers, and not taken but refused by
reason of their lesser value. I, then, will load my humble pack with this
despised and rejected merchandise, the refuse of so many buyers; and
will go about to distribute it, not indeed in great cities, but in the poorer
towns, taking such a price as the wares I offer may be worth.
 I know that many will call this useless work.
 Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall
rely on that which is much greater and more worthy — on
experience, the mistress of their Masters. They go about puffed up
and pompous, dressed and decorated with [the fruits], not of their own
labours, but of those of others. And they will not allow me my own. They
will scorn me as an inventor; but how much more might they — who are
not inventors but vaunters and declaimers of the works of others — be
blamed.
 Those men who are inventors and interpreters between Nature
and Man, as compared with boasters and declaimers of the works
of others, must be regarded and not otherwise esteemed than as
the object in front of a mirror, when compared with its image seen
in the mirror. For the first is something in itself, and the other
nothingness. — Folks little indebted to Nature, since it is only by chance
that they wear the human form and without it I might class them with
the herds of beasts.
 Many will think they may reasonably blame me by alleging that my
proofs are opposed to the authority of certain men held in the
highest reverence by their inexperienced judgments; not
considering that my works are the issue of pure and simple
experience, who is the one true mistress. These rules are sufficient
to enable you to know the true from the false — and this aids men
to look only for things that are possible and with due moderation
— and not to wrap yourself in ignorance, a thing which can have no
good result, so that in despair you would give yourself up to
melancholy.
 Among all the studies of natural causes and reasons Light chiefly
delights the beholder; and among the great features of Mathematics the
certainty of its demonstrations is what preeminently (tends to) elevate
the mind of the investigator. Perspective, therefore, must be preferred
to all the discourses and systems of human learning. In this branch [of
science] the beam of light is explained on those methods of
demonstration which form the glory not so much of Mathematics as of
Physics and are graced with the flowers of both.
 If the Lord — who is the light of all things — vouchsafe to enlighten me,
I will treat of Light; wherefore I will divide the present work into 3
Parts... Linear Perspective, The Perspective of Colour, The Perspective of
Disappearance.
 These rules are of use only in correcting the figures; since every man
makes some mistakes in his first compositions and he who knows them
not, cannot amend them. But you, knowing your errors, will correct
your works and where you find mistakes amend them, and remember
never to fall into them again. But if you try to apply these rules in
composition you will never make an end, and will produce confusion in
your works.
 These rules will enable you to have a free and sound judgment; since
good judgment is born of clear understanding, and a clear
understanding comes of reasons derived from sound rules, and sound
rules are the issue of sound experience — the common mother of all the
sciences and arts. Hence, bearing in mind the precepts of my rules, you
will be able, merely by your amended judgment, to criticise and
recognise every thing that is out of proportion in a work, whether in the
perspective or in the figures or any thing else.
 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.
  The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any
reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it
without being conscious of their existence.
 Here forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the
universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so
marvellous a thing … Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity — by
thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its
cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles...
o Of the eye
 The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and
goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.
 The eye — which sees all objects reversed — retains the images for
some time. This conclusion is proved by the results; because, the eye
having gazed at light retains some impression of it. After looking (at it)
there remain in the eye images of intense brightness, that make any less
brilliant spot seem dark until the eye has lost the last trace of the
impression of the stronger light.
II Linear Perspective[edit]

The boundaries of bodies are the least of all things.

Drawing is based upon perspective, which is nothing else than a thorough
knowledge of the function of the eye.
The Pyramid is the name I apply to the lines which, starting from the surface
and edges of each object, converge from a distance and meet in a single point.

The instant the atmosphere is illuminated it will be filled with an infinite

number of images which are produced by the various bodies and colours
assembled in it. And the eye is the target, a lodestone, of these images.
 A point is not part of a line.
 The smallest natural point is larger than all mathematical points,
and this is proved because the natural point has continuity, and
any thing that is continuous is infinitely divisible; but the
mathematical point is indivisible because it has no size.
 Nothing is that which fills no space. If one single point placed in a
circle may be the starting point of an infinite number of lines, and the
termination of an infinite number of lines, there must be an infinite
number of points separable from this point, and these when reunited
become one again; whence it follows that the part may be equal to the
whole.
 The point, being indivisible, occupies no space. That which
occupies no space is nothing. The limiting surface of one thing is the
beginning of another.
 That which has no limitations, has no form. The limitations of two
conterminous bodies are interchangeably the surface of each. All the
surfaces of a body are not parts of that body.
 The line has in itself neither matter nor substance and may rather
be called an imaginary idea than a real object; and this being its
nature it occupies no space. Therefore an infinite number of lines
 may be conceived of as intersecting each other at a point, which
has no dimensions and is only of the thickness (if thickness it may
be called) of one single line.
 The boundaries of bodies are the least of all things. The proposition
is proved to be true, because the boundary of a thing is a surface, which
is not part of the body contained within that surface; nor is it part of the
air surrounding that body, but is the medium interposted between the
air and the body, as is proved in its place.
 Drawing is based upon perspective, which is nothing else than a
thorough knowledge of the function of the eye. And this function
simply consists in receiving in a pyramid the forms and colours of all the
objects placed before it. I say in a pyramid, because there is no object so
small that it will not be larger than the spot where these pyramids are
received into the eye. Therefore, if you extend the lines from the edges
of each body as they converge you will bring them to a single point, and
necessarily the said lines must form a pyramid.
 Perspective is nothing more than a rational demonstration applied to
the consideration of how objects in front of the eye transmit their image
to it, by means of a pyramid of lines. The Pyramid is the name I apply to
the lines which, starting from the surface and edges of each object,
converge from a distance and meet in a single point.
 All objects transmit their image to the eye in pyramids, and the
nearer to the eye these pyramids are intersected the smaller will
the image appear of the objects which cause them.
 The instant the atmosphere is illuminated it will be filled with an
infinite number of images which are produced by the various
bodies and colours assembled in it. And the eye is the target, a
lodestone, of these images.
 That the atmosphere attracts to itself, like a lodestone, all the images of
the objects that exist in it, and not their forms merely but their nature
may be clearly seen by the sun, which is a hot and luminous body. All
the atmosphere, which is the all-pervading matter, absorbs light and
heat, and reflects in itself the image of the source of that heat and
 splendor and, in each minutest portion, does the same. The north pole
does the same as the lode stone shows; and the moon and the other
planets, without suffering any diminution, do the same.
 All bodies together, and each by itself, give off to the surrounding
air an infinite number of images which are all-pervading and each
complete, each conveying the nature, colour and form of the body
which produces it.
 Every body in light and shade fills the surrounding air with infinite
images of itself; and these, by infinite pyramids diffused in the air,
represent this body throughout space and on every side.
 The body of the atmosphere is full of infinite radiating pyramids
produced by the objects existing in it. These intersect and cross each
other with independent convergence without interfering with each
other and pass through all the surrounding atmosphere; and are of
equal force and value — all being equal to each, each to all. And by
means of these, images of the body are transmitted everywhere and on
all sides, and each receives in itself every minutest portion of the object
that produces it.
 The air is filled with endless images of the objects distributed in it;
and all are represented in all, and all in one, and all in each, whence
it happens that if two mirrors are placed in such a manner as to face
each other exactly, the first will be reflected in the second and the
second in the first. The first being reflected in the second takes to it the
image of itself with all the images represented in it, among which is the
image of the second mirror, and so, image within image, they go on to
infinity in such a manner as that each mirror has within it a mirror, each
smaller than the last and one inside the other. Thus, by this example, it
is clearly proved that every object sends its image to every spot whence
the object itself can be seen; and the converse: That the same object may
receive in itself all the images of the objects that are in front of it.
 All objects project their whole image and likeness, diffused and
mingled in the whole of the atmosphere, opposite to
themselves. The image of every point of the bodily surface, exists in
 every part of the atmosphere. All the images of the objects are in every
part of the atmosphere.
 It is impossible that the eye should project from itself, by visual rays, the
visual virtue, since, as soon as it opens, that front portion [of the eye]
which would give rise to this emanation would have to go forth to the
object and this it could not do without time. And this being so, it could
not travel so high as the sun in a month's time when the eye wanted to
see it.
 All the rays which convey the images of objects through the air are
straight lines. Hence, if the images of very large bodies have to pass
through very small holes, and beyond these holes recover their large
size, the lines must necessarily intersect.
 O neglectful Nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some
of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel
and ruthless stepmother? I see thy children given into slavery to others
without ever receiving any benefit, and in lieu of any reward for the
services they have done for them they are repaid by the severest
punishments.
 The Medici created and destroyed me.
III Six books on Light and Shade[edit]
Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies
could not be understood in detail but for shadow.

No small hole can so modify the convergence of rays of light as to prevent, at a

long distance, the transmission of the true form of the luminous body causing
them.
 Shadow is not the absence of light, merely the obstruction of the
luminous rays by an opaque body. Shadow is of the nature of
darkness. Light is of the nature of a luminous body; one conceals and the
other reveals. They are always associated and inseparable from all
objects. But shadow is a more powerful agent than light, for it can
impede and entirely deprive bodies of their light, while light can never
entirely expel shadow from a body, that is from an opaque body.
 Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands
between darkness and light.
 A shadow may be infinitely dark, and also of infinite degrees of
absence of darkness. The beginnings and ends of shadow lie
between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished
and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies
display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in
detail but for shadow.
 Shadow partakes of the nature of universal matter. All such matters
are more powerful in their beginning and grow weaker towards the end,
I say at the beginning, whatever their form or condition may be and
whether visible or invisible. And it is not from small beginnings that
they grow to a great size in time; as it might be a great oak which has a
feeble beginning from a small acorn. Yet I may say that the oak is most
powerful at its beginning, that is where it springs from the earth, which
is where it is largest.
 Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.
 Light is the chaser away of darkness. Shade is the obstruction of
light. Primary light is that which falls on objects and causes light and
shade. And derived lights are those portions of a body which are
illuminated by the primary light. A primary shadow is that side of a
body on which the light cannot fall.
 The eye can best distinguish the forms of objects when it is placed
between the shaded and the illuminated parts.
  The outlines and form of any part of a body in light and shade are
indistinct in the shadows and in the high lights; but in the portions
between the light and the shadows they are highly conspicuous.
 A single and distinct luminous body causes stronger relief in the object
than a diffused light; as may be seen by comparing one side of a
landscape illuminated by the sun, and one overshadowed by clouds, and
so illuminated only by the diffused light of the atmosphere.
 The body which is nearest to the light casts the largest shadow, and
why? If an object placed in front of a single light is very close to it you
will see that it casts a very large shadow on the opposite wall, and the
farther you remove the object from the light the smaller will the image
of the shadow become.
 If you transmit the rays of the sun through a hole in the shape of
a star you will see a beautiful effect of perspective in the spot where the
sun's rays fall.
 No small hole can so modify the convergence of rays of light as to
prevent, at a long distance, the transmission of the true form of the
luminous body causing them.
IV Perspective of Disappearance[edit]
 I ask how far away the eye can discern a non-luminous body, as, for
instance, a mountain. It will be very plainly visible if the sun is behind it;
and could be seen at a greater or less distance according to the sun's
place in the sky.
 When you represent in your work shadows which you can only discern
with difficulty, and of which you cannot distinguish the edges so that
you apprehend them confusedly, you must not make them sharp or
definite lest your work should have a wooden effect.
 A shadow will appear dark in proportion to the brilliancy of the light
surrounding it and conversely it will be less conspicuous where it is
seen against a darker background.
  A dark object seen against a bright background will appear smaller than
it is. A light object will look larger when it is seen against a background
darker than itself.
 A luminous body when obscured by a dense atmosphere will appear
smaller; as may be seen by the moon or sun veiled by fogs.
 Of several luminous bodies of equal size and brilliancy and at an equal
distance, that will look the largest which is surrounded by the darkest
background.
 I find that any luminous body when seen through a dense and thick mist
diminishes in proportion to its distance from the eye. Thus it is with the
sun by day, as well as the moon and the other eternal lights by night.
And when the air is clear, these luminaries appear larger in proportion
as they are farther from the eye.
 A luminous body will appear more brilliant in proportion as it is
surrounded by deeper shadow.
VI Perspective of Colour and Aerial Perspective[edit]
 The variety of colour in objects cannot be discerned at a great distance,
excepting in those parts which are directly lighted up by the solar rays.
VII On the Proportions and on the Movements of the Human Figure[edit]
 Experience shows us that the air must have darkness beyond it and yet
it appears blue. If you produce a small quantity of smoke from dry wood
and the rays of the sun fall on this smoke, and if you then place behind
the smoke a piece of black velvet on which the sun does not shine, you
will see that all the smoke which is between the eye and the black stuff
will appear of a beautiful blue colour. And if instead of the velvet you
place a white cloth smoke, that is too thick smoke, hinders, and too thin
smoke does not produce, the perfection of this blue colour. Hence a
moderate amount of smoke produces the finest blue.
 The atmosphere is blue by reason of the darkness above it because
black and white make blue.
VIII Botany for Painters and Elements of Landscape Painting[edit]
  The sun gives spirit and life to plants and the earth nourishes them with
moisture.
IX The Practice of Painting[edit]

A picture or representation of human figures, ought to be done in such a way

as that the spectator may easily recognise, by means of their attitudes,
the purpose in their minds.

What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art.

 Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent;
and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never
finish their drawings with shading.
 I myself have proved it to be of no small use, when in bed in the dark, to
recall in fancy the external details of forms previously studied, or other
noteworthy things conceived by subtle speculation; and this is certainly
an admirable exercise, and useful for impressing things on the memory.
 If you are representing a white body let it be surrounded by ample
space, because as white has no colour of its own, it is tinged and altered
in some degree by the colour of the objects surrounding it.
 A picture or representation of human figures, ought to be done in
such a way as that the spectator may easily recognise, by means of
their attitudes, the purpose in their minds. Thus, if you have to
represent a man of noble character in the act of speaking, let his
gestures be such as naturally accompany good words; and, in the same
way, if you wish to depict a man of a brutal nature, give him fierce
movements; as with his arms flung out towards the listener, and his
head and breast thrust forward beyond his feet, as if following the
speaker's hands. Thus it is with a deaf and dumb person who, when he
sees two men in conversation — although he is deprived of hearing —
can nevertheless understand, from the attitudes and gestures of the
speakers, the nature of their discussion.
 When you wish to represent a man speaking to a number of people,
consider the matter of which he has to treat and adapt his action to
the subject. Thus, if he speaks persuasively, let his action be
appropriate to it. If the matter in hand be to set forth an argument, let
the speaker, with the fingers of the right hand hold one finger of the left
hand, having the two smaller ones closed; and his face alert, and turned
towards the people with mouth a little open, to look as though he spoke;
and if he is sitting let him appear as though about to rise, with his head
forward. If you represent him standing make him leaning slightly
forward with body and head towards the people. These you must
represent as silent and attentive, all looking at the orator's face with
gestures of admiration; and make some old men in astonishment at the
 things they hear, with the corners of their mouths pulled down and
drawn in, their cheeks full of furrows, and their eyebrows raised, and
wrinkling the forehead where they meet.
 The motions of men must be such as suggest their dignity or their
baseness.
 Represent your figures in such action as may be fitted to express
what purpose is in the mind of each; otherwise your art will not be
admirable.
 What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art.
 If you condemn painting, which is the only imitator of all visible works
of nature, you will certainly despise a subtle invention which brings
philosophy and subtle speculation to the consideration of the nature of
all forms — seas and plains, trees, animals, plants and flowers — which
are surrounded by shade and light. And this is true knowledge and the
legitimate issue of nature; for painting is born of nature — or, to speak
more correctly, we will say it is the grandchild of nature; for all visible
things are produced by nature, and these her children have given birth
to painting. Hence we may justly call it the grandchild of nature and
related to God.
 The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal
means by which the central sense can most completely and
abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature; and the ear is
the second, which acquires dignity by hearing of the things the eye
has seen. If you, historians, or poets, or mathematicians had not seen
things with your eyes you could not report of them in writing. And if
you, O poet, tell a story with your pen, the painter with his brush can tell
it more easily, with simpler completeness and less tedious to be
understood. And if you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call
poetry blind painting. Now which is the worse defect? to be blind or
dumb? Though the poet is as free as the painter in the invention of his
fictions they are not so satisfactory to men as paintings; for, though
poetry is able to describe forms, actions and places in words, the painter
deals with the actual similitude of the forms, in order to represent them.
Now tell me which is the nearer to the actual man: the name of man or
 the image of the man. The name of man differs in different countries,
but his form is never changed but by death.
 The painter strives and competes with nature.
X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations[edit]

Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to

no purpose before so great a judge. … Nothing is hidden under the sun.
Movement will cease before we are weary of being useful.
 We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God.
 Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He
who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.
 Ivy is of longevity.
o Variant: Ivy is [a type] of longevity.
 Fire destroys falsehood, that is sophistry, and restores truth,
driving out darkness.
 Fire may be represented as the destroyer of all sophistry, and as the
image and demonstration of truth; because it is light and drives out
darkness which conceals all essences [or subtle things].
 Fire destroys all sophistry, that is deceit; and maintains truth alone, that
is gold.
 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.
 Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and
the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth.
 Movement will cease before we are weary of being useful.
 Movement will fail sooner than usefulness.
 When the sun appears which dispels darkness in general, you put out
the light which dispelled it for you in particular for your need and
convenience.
 Constancy does not begin, but is that which perseveres.
 Love, Fear, and Esteem, — Write these on three stones.
o "Of servants"
 Fame alone raises herself to Heaven, because virtuous things are in
favour with God.
  Disgrace should be represented upside down, because all her deeds are
contrary to God and tend to hell.
 Nothing is so much to be feared as Evil Report.
 I am still hopeful. A falcon, Time. But the coincidence is probably
accidental.
 Truth here makes Falsehood torment lying tongues.
 Such as harm is when it hurts me not, is good which avails me not.
 He who offends others, does not secure himself.
 One's thoughts turn towards Hope.
o By the side of this passage is a sketch of a cage with a bird sitting
in it.
XI The Notes on Sculpture[edit]

Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.

 If you wish to make a figure in marble, first make one of clay, and when
you have finished it, let it dry and place it in a case which should be
large enough, after the figure is taken out of it, to receive also the
marble, from which you intend to reveal the figure in imitation of the
one in clay.
 Sculptured figures which appear in motion, will, in their standing
position, actually look as if they were falling forward.
 To manage the large mould make a model of the small mould, make a
small room in proportion.
  Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.
o This relates to a huge equestrian statue that Leonardo had been
commissioned to design and create, but which was not cast until
over 500 years later, in 1999, when two huge statues based upon
his design were finally made. (c.1497)
XIV Anatomy, Zoology and Physiology[edit]
 The Common Sense, is that which judges of things offered to it by the
other senses. The ancient speculators have concluded that that part of
man which constitutes his judgment is caused by a central organ to
which the other five senses refer everything by means of impressibility;
and to this centre they have given the name Common Sense. And they
say that this Sense is situated in the centre of the head between
Sensation and Memory. And this name of Common Sense is given to it
solely because it is the common judge of all the other five
senses i.e.Seeing, Hearing, Touch, Taste and Smell. This Common Sense
is acted upon by means of Sensation which is placed as a medium
between it and the senses. Sensation is acted upon by means of the
images of things presented to it by the external instruments, that is to
say the senses which are the medium between external things and
Sensation. In the same way the senses are acted upon by objects.
Surrounding things transmit their images to the senses and the senses
transfer them to the Sensation. Sensation sends them to the Common
Sense, and by it they are stamped upon the memory and are there more
or less retained according to the importance or force of the impression.
 Though human ingenuity may make various inventions which, by
the help of various machines answering the same end, it will never
devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more
to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing
is wanting, and nothing is superfluous, and she needs no
counterpoise when she makes limbs proper for motion in the
bodies of animals. But she puts into them the soul of the body,
which forms them that is the soul of the mother which first
constructs in the womb the form of the man and in due time
awakens the soul that is to inhabit it.
  The soul seems to reside in the judgment, and the judgment would seem
to be seated in that part where all the senses meet; and this is called the
Common Sense and is not all-pervading throughout the body, as many
have thought. Rather is it entirely in one part. Because, if it were all-
pervading and the same in every part, there would have been no need to
make the instruments of the senses meet in one centre and in one single
spot; on the contrary it would have sufficed that the eye should fulfil the
function of its sensation on its surface only, and not transmit the image
of the things seen, to the sense, by means of the optic nerves, so that the
soul — for the reason given above — may perceive it in the surface of
the eye.
 King of the animals — as thou hast described him — I should rather say
king of the beasts, thou being the greatest — because thou hast spared
slaying them, in order that they may give thee their children for the
benefit of the gullet, of which thou hast attempted to make a sepulchre
for all animals; and I would say still more, if it were allowed me to speak
the entire truth . But we do not go outside human matters in telling of
one supreme wickedness, which does not happen among the animals of
the earth, inasmuch as among them are found none who eat their own
kind, unless through want of sense.
 Our life is made by the death of others.
XV Astronomy[edit]

The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of the
universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united with them.
  The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of
the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and
united with them. And any one standing on the moon, when it and the
sun are both beneath us, would see this our earth and the element of
water upon it just as we see the moon, and the earth would light it as it
lights us.
XVI Physical Geography[edit]
 And if you should say that the shells were carried by the waves, being
empty and dead, I say that where the dead went they were not far
removed from the living; for in these mountains living ones are found,
which are recognisable by the shells being in pairs; and they are in a
layer where there are no dead ones; and a little higher up they are
found, where they were thrown by the waves, all the dead ones with
their shells separated, near to where the rivers fell into the sea, to a
great depth; like the Arno which fell from the Gonfolina near to Monte
Lupo, where it left a deposit of gravel which may still be seen, and which
has agglomerated; and of stones of various districts, natures, and
colours and hardness, making one single conglomerate. And a little
beyond the sandstone conglomerate a tufa has been formed, where it
turned towards Castel Florentino; farther on, the mud was deposited in
which the shells lived, and which rose in layers according to the levels at
which the turbid Arno flowed into that sea. And from time to time the
bottom of the sea was raised, depositing these shells in layers, as may be
seen in the cutting at Colle Gonzoli, laid open by the Arno which is
wearing away the base of it; in which cutting the said layers of shells are
very plainly to be seen in clay of a bluish colour, and various marine
objects are found there. And if the earth of our hemisphere is indeed
raised by so much higher than it used to be, it must have become by so
much lighter by the waters which it lost through the rift between
Gibraltar and Ceuta; and all the more the higher it rose, because the
weight of the waters which were thus lost would be added to the earth
in the other hemisphere. And if the shells had been carried by the
muddy deluge they would have been mixed up, and separated from each
other amidst the mud, and not in regular steps and layers — as we see
them now in our time.
XVII Topographical Notes[edit]
 Men born in hot countries love the night because it refreshes them and
have a horror of light because it burns them; and therefore they are of
the colour of night, that is black. And in cold countries it is just the
contrary.
XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.[edit]

Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or past;

prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to pass, though but
slowly.

The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it

may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be
loved or hated unless it is first known.
You do ill if you praise, and still worse if you reprove in a matter you do not
understand.

It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last.

 I obey Thee Lord, first for the love I ought, in all reason to bear Thee;
secondly for that Thou canst shorten or prolong the lives of men.
 Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour.
 O admirable impartiality of Thine, Thou first Mover; Thou hast not
permitted that any force should fail of the order or quality of its
necessary results.
 Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.
 Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law
of nature.
 In many cases one and the same thing is attracted by two strong forces,
namely Necessity and Potency. Water falls in rain; the earth absorbs it
from the necessity for moisture; and the sun evaporates it, not from
necessity, but by its power.
 Weight, force and casual impulse, together with resistance, are the four
external powers in which all the visible actions of mortals have their
being and their end.
 Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.
 The motive power is the cause of all life.
 O Man, who will discern in this work of mine the wonderful works of
Nature, if you think it would be a criminal thing to destroy it, reflect how
much more criminal it is to take the life of a man; and if this, his external
form, appears to thee marvellously constructed, remember that it is
nothing as compared with the soul that dwells in that structure; for that
indeed, be it what it may, is a thing divine. Leave it then to dwell in His
work at His good will and pleasure, and let not your rage or malice
destroy a life — for indeed, he who does not value it, does not himself
deserve it.
 The part always has a tendency to reunite with its whole in order
to escape from its imperfection.
 Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than with the
imagination being awake?
 The senses are of the earth; Reason, stands apart in contemplation.
 Every action needs to be prompted by a motive. To know and to will
are two operations of the human mind. Discerning, judging,
deliberating are acts of the human mind.
 All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.
 Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or
past; prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to
pass, though but slowly.
 Experience, the interpreter between formative nature and the human
race, teaches how that nature acts among mortals; and being
constrained by necessity cannot act otherwise than as reason, which is
its helm, requires her to act.
 Wisdom is the daughter of experience.
 Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in
experience.
 Truth was the only daughter of Time.
 Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising
themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.
 Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting
from her what is not in her power. Men wrongly complain of
Experience; with great abuse they accuse her of leading them astray but
they set Experience aside, turning from it with complaints as to our
ignorance causing us to be carried away by vain and foolish desires to
promise ourselves, in her name, things that are not in her power; saying
that she is fallacious. Men are unjust in complaining of innocent
Experience, constantly accusing her of error and of false evidence.
 Every instrument requires to be made by experience.
 The man who blames the supreme certainty of mathematics feeds on
confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of sophistical
sciences which lead to an eternal quackery.
 There is no certainty in sciences where one of the mathematical
sciences cannot be applied, or which are not in relation with these
mathematics.
 Any one who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his
understanding, but rather his memory. Good culture is born of a
good disposition; and since the cause is more to be praised than
the effect, I will rather praise a good disposition without culture,
than good culture without the disposition.
 Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.
 Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor
who enters a ship without a helm or a compass, and who never can be
certain whither he is going.
 Now you see that the hope and the desire of returning home and to
one's former state is like the moth to the light, and that the man who
with constant longing awaits with joy each new spring time, each new
summer, each new month and new year — deeming that the things he
longs for are ever too late in coming — does not perceive that he is
longing for his own destruction. But this desire is the very quintessence,
the spirit of the elements, which finding itself imprisoned with the soul
is ever longing to return from the human body to its giver. And you must
know that this same longing is that quintessence, inseparable from
nature, and that man is the image of the world.
 O Time! consumer of all things; O envious age! thou dost destroy all
things and devour all things with the relentless teeth of years, little
by little in a slow death. Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing
the withered wrinkles made in her face by old age, wept and wondered
why she had twice been carried away.
 O sleepers! what a thing is slumber! Sleep resembles death. Ah, why
then dost thou not work in such wise as that after death thou mayst
retain a resemblance to perfect life, when, during life, thou art in sleep
so like to the hapless dead?
 The knowledge of past times and of the places on the earth is both
an ornament and nutriment to the human mind.
 To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things
it would take off something from God's grace; and Truth is so
excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.
 Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to
darkness; and this truth is in itself so excellent that, even when it dwells
on humble and lowly matters, it is still infinitely above uncertainty and
lies, disguised in high and lofty discourses; because in our minds, even if
lying should be their fifth element, this does not prevent that the truth
of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects, though not of
 wandering wits. But you who live in dreams are better pleased by the
sophistical reasons and frauds of wits in great and uncertain things,
than by those reasons which are certain and natural and not so far
above us.
 Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker.
 Men are in error when they lament the flight of time, accusing it of being
too swift, and not perceiving that it is sufficient as it passes; but good
memory, with which nature has endowed us, causes things long past to
seem present.
 Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you
understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct
yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.
 The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect,
because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good.
For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.
 As a day well spent procures a happy sleep, so a life well employed
procures a happy death.
 The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and
the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present.
 Just as eating against one’s will is injurious to health, so studying
without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes
in.[1]
 Just as iron rusts unless it is used, and water putrifies or, in cold, turns
to ice, so our intellect spoils unless it is kept in use.
o Variant: Just as iron rusts from disuse... even so does inaction
spoil the intellect.
 You do ill if you praise, and still worse if you reprove in a matter
you do not understand.
 It seems to me that men of coarse and clumsy habits and of small
knowledge do not deserve such fine instruments nor so great a variety
of natural mechanism as men of speculation and of great knowledge;
 but merely a sack in which their food may be stowed and whence it may
issue, since they cannot be judged to be any thing else than vehicles for
food; for it seems to me they have nothing about them of the human
species but the voice and the figure, and for all the rest are much below
beasts.
 Some there are who are nothing else than a passage for food and
augmentors of excrement and fillers of privies, because through them
no other things in the world, nor any good effects are produced, since
nothing but full privies results from them.
 The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
 Blind ignorance misleads us thus and delights with the results of
lascivious joys. Because it does not know the true light. Because it does
not know what is the true light. Vain splendour takes from us the power
of being .... behold! for its vain splendour we go into the fire, thus blind
ignorance does mislead us. That is, blind ignorance so misleads us that...
O! wretched mortals, open your eyes.
 That is not riches, which may be lost; virtue is our true good and
the true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost; that never
deserts us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external
riches, hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor
in contempt, and mocked at for having lost them.
 Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and
false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is
better than a great lie.
 He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.
 He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.
 That man is of supreme folly who always wants for fear of wanting; and
his life flies away while he is still hoping to enjoy the good things which
he has with extreme labour acquired.
 We ought not to desire the impossible.
 Ask counsel of him who rules himself well.
 Chi non punisce il male comanda che si faccia.
o He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.
 The grave will fall in upon him who digs it.
 You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.
 Chi poco pensa, molto erra.
o He who thinks little, errs much.
 It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last.
 Where there is most feeling, there is the greatest martyrdom.
 The memory of benefits is a frail defence against ingratitude.
 Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.
 Be not false about the past.
 Patience serves us against insults precisely as clothes do against the
cold. For if you multiply your garments as the cold increases, that cold
cannot hurt you; in the same way increase your patience under great
offences, and they cannot hurt your feelings.
 To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good
man.
 Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing
which scares virtue.
 We are deceived by promises and time disappoints us...
 Fear arises sooner than anything else.
 Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.
 Threats alone are the weapons of the threatened man.
 Wherever good fortune enters, envy lays siege to the place and
attacks it; and when it departs, sorrow and repentance remain
behind.
 He who walks straight rarely falls.
 It is bad if you praise, and worse if you reprove a thing, I mean, if you do
not understand the matter well.
 It is ill to praise, and worse to reprimand in matters that you do not
understand.
 The lover is moved by the beloved object as the senses are by sensual
objects; and they unite and become one and the same thing. The work is
the first thing born of this union; if the thing loved is base the lover
becomes base.
 When the thing taken into union is perfectly adapted to that which
receives it, the result is delight and pleasure and satisfaction.
 When that which loves is united to the thing beloved it can rest there;
when the burden is laid down it finds rest there. There will be eternal
fame also for the inhabitants of that town, constructed and enlarged by
him.
 The city will gain beauty worthy of its name and to you it will be
useful by its revenues, and the eternal fame of its aggrandizement.
o These notes were possibly written in preparation for a letter. The
meaning is obscure.
 To preserve Nature's chiefest boon, that is freedom, I can find means of
offence and defence, when it is assailed by ambitious tyrants, and first I
will speak of the situation of the walls, and also I shall show how
communities can maintain their good and just Lords.
 The false interpreters of nature declare that quicksilver is the common
seed of every metal, not remembering that nature varies the seed
according to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the
world.
 Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the
stupid multitude. Pharisees — that is to say, friars.
 It is true that impatience, the mother of stupidity, praises brevity,
as if such persons had not life long enough to serve them to acquire
a complete knowledge of one single subject, such as the human
 body; and then they want to comprehend the mind of God in which
the universe is included, weighing it minutely and mincing it into
infinite parts, as if they had to dissect it!
 Oh! human stupidity, do you not perceive that, though you have been
with yourself all your life, you are not yet aware of the thing you possess
most of, that is of your folly? and then, with the crowd of sophists, you
deceive yourselves and others, despising the mathematical sciences, in
which truth dwells and the knowledge of the things included in them.
And then you occupy yourself with miracles, and write that you possess
information of those things of which the human mind is incapable and
which cannot be proved by any instance from nature. And you fancy you
have wrought miracles when you spoil a work of some speculative
mind, and do not perceive that you are falling into the same error as that
of a man who strips a tree of the ornament of its branches covered with
leaves mingled with the scented blossoms or fruit.
 The spirit has no voice, because where there is a voice there is a body,
and where there is a body space is occupied, and this prevents the eye
from seeing what is placed behind that space; hence the surrounding air
is filled by the body, that is by its image.
 In order to prove whether the spirit can speak or not, it is
necessary in the first place to define what a voice is and how it is
generated.
 Every quantity is intellectually conceivable as infinitely divisible.
 Amid the vastness of the things among which we live, the existence
of nothingness holds the first place; its function extends over all
things that have no existence, and its essence, as regards time, lies
precisely between the past and the future, and has nothing in the
present. This nothingness has the part equal to the whole, and the
whole to the part, the divisible to the indivisible; and the product of the
sum is the same whether we divide or multiply, and in addition as in
subtraction; as is proved by arithmeticians by their tenth figure which
represents zero; and its power has not extension among the things of
Nature.
  What is called Nothingness is to be found only in time and in
speech. In time it stands between the past and future and has no
existence in the present; and thus in speech it is one of the things of
which we say: They are not, or they are impossible.
 O mighty and once living instrument of formative nature. Incapable of
availing thyself of thy vast strength thou hast to abandon a life of
stillness and to obey the law which God and time gave to procreative
nature.
o Of the lightning in clouds.
 O time, swift robber of all created things, how many kings, how
many nations hast thou undone, and how many changes of states
and of various events have happened since the wondrous forms of
this fish perished here in this cavernous and winding recess. Now
destroyed by time thou liest patiently in this confined space with
bones stripped and bare; serving as a support and prop for the
superimposed mountain.
XX Humorous Writings[edit]

Like unto this is the love of virtue. It never looks at any vile or base thing, but
rather clings always to pure and virtuous things and takes up its abode in a
noble heart; as the birds do in green woods on flowery branches.
We see the most striking example of humility in the lamb… so that very often
it has been seen that the lions forbear to kill them.

Things that are separate shall be united and acquire such virtue that they will
restore to man his lost memory.
 The Caladrius is a bird of which it is related that, when it is carried
into the presence of a sick person, if the sick man is going to die,
the bird turns away its head and never looks at him; but if the sick
man is to be saved the bird never loses sight of him but is the cause
of curing him of all his sickness. Like unto this is the love of virtue.
It never looks at any vile or base thing, but rather clings always to
pure and virtuous things and takes up its abode in a noble heart; as
the birds do in green woods on flowery branches. And this Love
shows itself more in adversity than in prosperity; as light does,
which shines most where the place is darkest.
 The unicorn, through its intemperance and not knowing how to control
itself, for the love it bears to fair maidens forgets its ferocity and
wildness; and laying aside all fear it will go up to a seated damsel and go
to sleep in her lap, and thus the hunters take it.
 We see the most striking example of humility in the lamb which
will submit to any animal; and when they are given for food to
imprisoned lions they are as gentle to them as to their own mother,
so that very often it has been seen that the lions forbear to kill
them.
 The cock does not crow till it has thrice flapped its wings; the parrot in
moving among boughs never puts its feet excepting where it has first
put its beak. Vows are not made till Hope is dead.
 A man was desired to rise from bed, because the sun was already risen.
To which he replied: "If I had as far to go, and as much to do as he has, I
should be risen by now; but having but a little way to go, I shall not rise
yet."
 First, of things relating to animals; secondly, of irrational creatures;
thirdly of plants; fourthly, of ceremonies; fifthly, of manners; sixthly, of
cases or edicts or quarrels; seventhly, of cases that are impossible in
nature [paradoxes], as, for instance, of those things which, the more is
taken from them, the more they grow. And reserve the great matters till
the end, and the small matters give at the beginning.
 Men will seem to see new destructions in the sky. The flames that
fall from it will seem to rise in it and to fly from it with terror. They will
hear every kind of animals speak in human language. They will
instantaneously run in person in various parts of the world,
without motion. They will see the greatest splendour in the midst
of darkness. O! marvel of the human race! What madness has led you
thus! You will speak with animals of every species and they with you in
human speech. You will see yourself fall from great heights without any
harm and torrents will accompany you, and will mingle with their rapid
course.
o Of dreams
 There will be many who will eagerly and with great care and solicitude
follow up a thing, which, if they only knew its malignity, would always
terrify them. Of those men, who, the older they grow, the more
avaricious they become, whereas, having but little time to stay, they
should become more liberal.
 Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in
proportion as it is diminished.
o Of a ditch
 Oh! how foul a thing, that we should see the tongue of one animal in the
guts of another.
o Of the Tongues of Pigs and Calves in Sausage-skins.
 There will be great winds by reason of which things of the East will
become things of the West; and those of the South, being involved in
the course of the winds, will follow them to distant lands.
 There will be many men who will move one against another, holding in
their hands a cutting tool. But these will not do each other any injury
beyond tiring each other; for, when one pushes forward the other will
draw back. But woe to him who comes between them! For he will end
by being cut in pieces.
 That which was at first bound, cast out and rent by many and
various beaters will be respected and honoured, and its precepts
will be listened to with reverence and love.
 One who by himself is mild enough and void of all offence will become
terrible and fierce by being in bad company, and will most cruelly take
the life of many men, and would kill many more if they were not
hindered by bodies having no soul, that have come out of caverns —
that is, breastplates of iron.
 One shall be born from small beginnings which will rapidly become
vast. This will respect no created thing, rather will it, by its power,
transform almost every thing from its own nature into another.
o "Of fire"
 All the elements will be seen mixed together in a great whirling mass,
now borne towards the centre of the world, now towards the sky; and
now furiously rushing from the South towards the frozen North, and
sometimes from the East towards the West, and then again from this
hemisphere to the other.
o "Of Water, which flows turbid and mixed with Soil and Dust; and
of Mist, which is mixed with the Air; and of Fire which is mixed
with its own, and each with each."
 Men standing in opposite hemispheres will converse and deride
each other and embrace each other, and understand each other's
language.
o "Of Hemispheres, which are infinite; and which are divided by an
infinite number of Lines, so that every Man always has one of
these Lines between his Feet."
 Many will there be who will give up work and labour and poverty of life
and goods, and will go to live among wealth in splendid buildings,
declaring that this is the way to make themselves acceptable to God.
 An infinite number of men will sell publicly and unhindered things of
the very highest price, without leave from the Master of it; while it never
was theirs nor in their power; and human justice will not prevent it.
o "Of Selling Paradise"
 Animals will be seen on the earth who will always be fighting
against each other with the greatest loss and frequent deaths on
each side. And there will be no end to their malignity; by their strong
limbs we shall see a great portion of the trees of the vast forests laid low
throughout the universe; and, when they are filled with food the
satisfaction of their desires will be to deal death and grief and labour
and wars and fury to every living thing; and from their immoderate
pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but the too great weight of
their limbs will keep them down. Nothing will remain on earth, or under
the earth or in the waters which will not be persecuted, disturbed and
spoiled, and those of one country removed into another. And their
bodies will become the sepulture and means of transit of all they have
 killed. 
O Earth! why dost thou not open and engulf them in the fissures of thy
vast abyss and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven
such a cruel and horrible monster.
o "Of the Cruelty of Man"
 There will be many which will increase in their destruction.
o "The Ball of Snow rolling over Snow"
 The East will be seen to rush to the West and the South to the North in
confusion round and about the universe, with great noise and trembling
or fury.
o "In the East wind which rushes to the West"
 The solar rays will kindle fire on the earth, by which a thing that is
under the sky will be set on fire, and, being reflected by some obstacle, it
will bend downwards.
 Happy will they be who lend ear to the words of the Dead.
 Men out of fear will cling to the thing they most fear.
 Things that are separate shall be united and acquire such virtue
that they will restore to man his lost memory.
o Of papyrus
 The bones of the Dead will be seen to govern the fortunes of him who
moves them.
o Of Dice
 The vine that has grown old on an old tree falls with the ruin of that
tree, and through that bad companionship must perish with it.
 The ball of snow when, as it rolls, it descends from the snowy
mountains, increases in size as it falls.
 A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a
baked one.
  The image of the sun where it falls appears as a thing which covers
the person who attempts to cover it.
XXI Letters. Personal Records. Dated Notes.[edit]

Tell me if anything was ever done.

 I have seen motions of the air so furious that they have carried, mixed
up in their course, the largest trees of the forest and whole roofs of great
palaces, and I have seen the same fury bore a hole with a whirling
movement digging out a gravel pit, and carrying gravel, sand and water
more than half a mile through the air.
 Like a whirling wind which rushes down a sandy and hollow valley, and
which, in its hasty course, drives to its centre every thing that opposes
its furious course... No otherwise does the Northern blast whirl round in
its tempestuous progress...
 It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to
interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.
 If you meet with any one who is virtuous do not drive him from you; do
him honour, so that he may not have to flee from you and be reduced to
hiding in hermitages, or caves or other solitary places to escape from
your treachery; if there is such an one among you do him honour, for
these are our Saints upon earth; these are they who deserve statues
from us, and images...
 May it please our great Author that I may demonstrate the nature
of man and his customs, in the way I describe his figure.
 This writing distinctly about the kite seems to be my destiny, because
among the first recollections of my infancy, it seemed to me that, as I
 was in my cradle, a kite came to me and opened my mouth with its tail,
and struck me several times with its tail inside my lips.
 When I did well, as a boy you used to put me in prison. Now if I do it
being grown up, you will do worse to me.
 Tell me if anything was ever done.
o This was written in his notebooks in despair of so many projects
that were never completed.
 Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love.
 I ask at what part of its curved motion the moving cause will leave the
thing moved and moveable.
 If any man could have discovered the utmost powers of the cannon, in
all its various forms and have given such a secret to the Romans, with
what rapidity would they have conquered every country and have
vanquished every army, and what reward could have been great enough
for such a service! Archimedes indeed, although he had greatly damaged
the Romans in the siege of Syracuse, nevertheless did not fail of being
offered great rewards from these very Romans; and when Syracuse was
taken, diligent search was made for Archimedes; and he being found
dead greater lamentation was made for him by the Senate and people of
Rome than if they had lost all their army; and they did not fail to honour
him with burial and with a statue.
 Reserve the great matters till the end, and the small matters give at
the beginning.
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938)[edit]
These quotes are from the English translation by Edward MacCurdy (1938)
I Philosophy[edit]
 Every part is disposed to unite with the whole, that it may thereby
escape from its own incompleteness.
 The mind passes in an instant from east to west; and all the great
incorporeal things resemble these very closely in speed.
 While I thought I have been learning how to live, I have been learning
how to die.
 Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.
 As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy
death.
 Where there is most power of feeling, there of martyrs is the greatest
martyr.
 Science, knowledge of the things that are possible present and past;
prescience, knowledge of the things which may come to pass.
 To enjoy—to love a thing for its own sake and for no other reason.
 Life well spent is long.
 Observe the light and consider its beauty. Blink your eye and look at it.
That which you see was not there at first, and that which was there is
there no more.
 The water which rises in the mountain is the blood which keeps the
mountain in life.
 He who does not value life does not deserve it.
 Nature is full of infinite causes which were never set forth in experience.
 Wine is good, but water is preferable at table.
 He who suffers time to slip away and does not grow in virtue the more
one thinks about him the sadder one becomes. No man has a capacity
for virtue who sacrifices honour for gain. Fortune is powerless to
help one who does not exert himself. That man becomes happy
who follows Christ. There is no perfect gift without great suffering.
Our triumphs and our pomps pass away; gluttony and sloth and
enervating luxury have banished every virtue from the world; so that as
it were wandering from its course our nature is subdued by habit. Now
and henceforth it is meet that you cure yourself of laziness. The Master
has said that sitting on down or lying under the quilts will not bring thee
to fame. He who without it has frittered life away leaves no more trace
 of himself upon the earth than smoke does in the air or the foam on the
water.
o p. 91
XVII Flight[edit]
 Since the wings are swifter to press the air than the air is to escape from
beneath the wings the air becomes condensed and resists the movement
of the wings; and the motive power of these wings by subduing the
resistance of the air raises itself in a contrary movement to the
movement of the wings.
 A bird makes the same use of wings and tail in the air as a swimmer
does of his arms and legs in the water.
 Every body that is moved continues to move so long as the impression of
the force of its mover is retained in it, therefore the movement of this
wing with violence... will come to move the whole bird with it until the
impetus of the moved air has been consumed.
 Remember that your bird should have no other model than the bat,
because its membranes serve as an armour or rather as a means of
building together the pieces of its armour, that is the framework of the
wings.
 If you take as your pattern the wings of feathered birds, these are more
powerful in structure of bone and sinew because they are penetrable,
that is to say the feathers are separated from one another and the air
passes through them. But the bat is aided by its membrane, which binds
the whole together and is not penetrated by the air.
 You will perhaps say that the sinews and muscles of a bird are
incomparably more powerful than those of a man... But the reply to this
is that such great strength gives it a reserve of power beyond what it
ordinarily uses...
 Swimming upon water teaches men how birds do upon the air.
 The air which is struck with most swiftness by the movable thing is
compressed to the greatest degree in itself.
  The function which the wing performs against the air when the air is
motionless is the same as that of the air moved against the wings when
these are without motion.
 It is always the under side of the branches of any plant that show
themselves to the wind which strikes it, and one leans against the other.
 That part of the air which is nearest to the wing which presses on it, will
have the greatest density.
 The properties of the air are such that it may become condensed or
rarefied.
 No impetus created by any movement whatever can be immediately
consumed, but if it finds an object which has a great resistance it
consumes itself in a reflex movement.
 Impetus is a power of the mover applied in a movable thing which
causes the movable thing to move after it is separated from its mover.
XXIX Precepts of the Painter[edit]
 Painting is concerned with all the ten attributes of sight, namely
darkness and brightness, substance and colour, form and place,
remoteness and nearness, movement and rest; and it is with these
attributes that this my small book will be woven, recalling to the painter
by what rules and in what way he ought by his art to imitate all things
that are the work of nature and the adornment of the world.
 Whenever you make a figure of a man or of some graceful animal
remember to avoid making it seem wooden; that is it should move with
counterpoise and balance in such a way as not to seem a block of wood.
 I give the degrees of things seen by the eye as the musician does of the
sounds heard by the ear.
 When you have drawn the same thing so many times that it seems that
you know it by heart try to do it without the model; but having a tracing
made of the model upon a thin piece of smooth glass and lay this upon
the drawing you have made without the model. ...where you find that
you have erred bear it in mind in order not to make the mistake
 again. ...if you cannot procure smooth glass to make a tracing... take a
piece of very fine parchment well oiled and then dried, and when you
have used it for for one drawing you can wipe this out with a sponge
and do a second.
 Take a piece of glass of the size of a half sheet of royal folio paper, and
fix it... between your eye and the object you wish to portray. Then move
it away until your eye is two-thirds of a braccio away from the piece of
glass, and fasten your head by means of an instrument in such a way as
to prevent any movement of it whatsoever. Then close or cover up one
eye, and with a brush or a piece of red chalk finely ground mark out on
the glass what is visible beyond it; afterwards, copy it by tracing on
paper from the glass, then prick it out upon paper of a better quality and
paint it if you so desire, paying special attention to the aerial
perspective.
 If you wish to thoroughly accustom yourself to correct and good
positions for your fingers, fasten a frame or a loom divided into squares
by threads between your eye and the nude figure which you are
representing, and then make the same squares upon the paper where
you wish to draw the said nude but very faintly. You should then put a
pellet of wax on a part of the network to serve as a mark which as you
look at your model should always cover the pit of the throat, or if he
should have turned his back make it cover one of the vertebrae of the
neck. ...The squares you draw may be as much smaller than those of the
network in proportion as you wish your figure to be less than life size...
 When you wish to see whether the general effect of your picture
corresponds with that of the object represented after nature, take a
mirror and set it so that it reflects the actual thing, and then compare
the reflection with your picture, and consider carefully whether the
subject of the two images is in conformity with both, studying especially
the mirror. The mirror ought to be taken as a guide... you see the picture
made upon one plane showing things which appear in relief, and the
mirror upon one plane does the same. The picture is on one single
surface, and the mirror is the same. ...if you but know well how to
compose your picture it will also seem a natural thing seen in a great
mirror.
  You know that in an atmosphere of uniform density the most distant
things seen through it, such as the mountains, in consequence of the
great quantity of atmosphere which is between your eye and them, will
appear blue. Therfore you should make the building... wall which is
more distant less defined and bluer. ...five times as far away make five
times as blue.
 Painting embraces and contains within itself all the things which nature
produces or which results from the fortuitous actions of men... he is but
a poor master who makes only a single figure well.
 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. Therefore you should be desirous of hearing
patiently the opinions of others, and consider and reflect carefully
whether or no he who censures you has reason for his censure; and
correct your work if you find that he is right, but if not, then let it seem
that you have not understood him, or, in case he is a man whom you
esteem, show him by argument why it is that he is mistaken.
XLV Prophecies[edit]
 Happy will be those who give ear to the words of the dead:—The
reading of good works and the observing of their precepts.
 Feathers shall raise men towards the heaven even as they do the birds:
—That is by the letters written by their quills.
 Things severed shall be united and shall acquire of themselves such
virtue that they shall restore to men their lost memory:—That is the
papyrus sheets, which are formed out of several strips and preserve the
memory of the thoughts and deeds of men.
 Men will deal rude blows to that which is the cause of their life:—They
will thrash the grain.
 The wind which passes through the skins of animals will make men leap
up:—That is the bagpipes, which cause men to dance.