261 quotes
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.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than with the imagination being awake?
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Men standing in opposite hemispheres will converse and deride each other and embrace each other, and understand each other's language.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
The name of man differs in different countries, but his form is never changed but by death.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
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.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
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.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in proportion as it is diminished.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Fire destroys all sophistry, that is deceit; and maintains truth alone, that is gold.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
The bones of the Dead will be seen to govern the fortunes of him who moves them.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
There will be many which will increase in their destruction.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Love, Fear, and Esteem, — Write these on three stones.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
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.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Truth here makes Falsehood torment lying tongues.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
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 Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
The knowledge of past times and of the places on the earth is both an ornament and nutriment to the human mind.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a baked one.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)