734 Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci

If you do not rest on the good foundation of nature, you will labour with little honor and less profit.

The young man should first learn perspective, then the proportions of objects. Next, copy work after the hand of a good master, to gain the habit of drawing parts of the body well; and then to work from nature, to confirm the lessons learned.

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.

Black is like a broken vessel, which is deprived of the capacity to contain anything.

Medicine is the restoration of discordant elements.

He who walks straight rarely falls.

A man of supreme folly: his life flies away while he is merely hoping to enjoy it.

Strive to preserve your health; and in this you will better succeed in proportion as you keep clear of the physicians, for their drugs are a kind of alchemy concerning which there are no fewer books than there are medicines.

Here is a thing which the more it is needed the more it is rejected: and this is advice, which is unwillingly heeded by those who most need it, that is to say, by the ignorant.