Insightful quotes by Leonardo da Vinci

50 quotes by Leonardo da Vinci:

1. "Art is never finished, only abandoned."
2. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
3. "Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen."
4. "The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding."
5. "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."
6. "I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."
7. "Learning never exhausts the mind."
8. "Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world."
9. "The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of."
10. "Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in."
11. "Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it."
12. "As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death."
13. "Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art."
14. "He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast."
15. "Nature never breaks her own laws."
16. "One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself."
17. "Wisdom is the daughter of experience."
18. "The smallest feline is a masterpiece."
19. "The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art."
20. "I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection."
21. "Water is the driving force of all nature."
22. "Art is the grandchild of nature."
23. "The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding."
24. "While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die."
25. "In time and with water, everything changes."
26. "A well-spent day brings happy sleep."
27. "Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge."
28. "Art is the expression of the mind and the senses."
29. "The mind of the painter should be like a mirror which is filled with as many images as there are things placed before him."
30. "Experience is the mother of all knowledge."
31. "Every obstacle can be overcome if you use your mind and keep trying."
32. "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."
33. "He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year."
34. "The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions."
35. "All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions."
36. "The natural desire of good men is knowledge."
37. "One can resist the invasion of armies; one cannot resist the invasion of ideas."
38. "In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire."
39. "Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind."
40. "Art is the daughter of freedom."
41. "The artist who draws or paints by practice and judgment of the eye, without the use of scientific rules, is like a mirror which reflects objects without being distorted by them." 
42. "In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time."
    

42. "The painter who is familiar with the nature of the sinews, muscles, and tendons, will know very well, in giving movement to a limb, how many and which sinews cause it; and which muscle, by swelling, causes the contraction of that sinew."
43. "Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence."
44. "Art is never chaste, and we should keep her away from pure minds."
45. "There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see."
46. "Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
47. "As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself."
48. "Painting is concerned with all the 10 attributes of sight; which are: Darkness, Light, Solidity and Colour, Form and Position, Distance and Propinquity, Motion and Rest."
49. "To develop a complete mind, study the science of art, study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else."

These are just a few of the many insightful and inspiring quotes from Leonardo da Vinci, who was not only a great artist but also a scientist, engineer, and inventor. His ideas and creations continue to influence and inspire people around the world today.