734 Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci

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.

Inequality is the cause of all local movements.

If we make mistakes in our first compositions and do not know them, we may not amend them.

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.

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. Therefore you should make the building... wall which is more distant less defined and bluer... five times as far away, make five times as blue.

The first of all single colors is white ... We shall set down white for the representative of light, without which no color can be seen; yellow for the earth; green for water; blue for air; red for fire; and black for total darkness.

A luminous body will appear more brilliant in proportion as it is surrounded by deeper shadow.

O Time with your teethy years! You swallow up all things little by little in a slow-motion, wrinkling process of dying.

It reflects no great honour on a painter to be able to execute one thing well.