Leonardo da Vinci

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 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.

I know that many will call this useless work.

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.

The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.

I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.

Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics.

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.

Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature.

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

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.

Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory.

Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.

Tristo è quel discepolo che non avanza il suo maestro. (Modern Italian)

Tristo é lo discepolo che non avanza il suo maestro.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.

3 miglia più in là si trova li edifici della vena del rame e dello argento, presso una terra detta Pra Santo Petro e vene di ferro e cose fantastiche. (Ancient Italian)

truovasi di miglio i(n) miglio bone osteriee. (Ancient Italian)

Subito salse in me due cose: paura e desiderio: paura per la minacciante e scura spelonca, desiderio per vedere se là entro fusse alcuna miracolosa cosa. (Ancient Italian)

Su per lago di Como di ver Lamagnia (Alemagna, cioè Germania) è valle di Ciavenna dove la Mera fiume mette in esso lago. Qui si truova montagni sterili e altissime chon grandi scogli ... In queste montagnie li uccielli d’acqua dette maragoni. Qui nasscie abeti, larici eppini, daini, stambuche, chamoze e teribili orsi. Non ci si pò montare se none a 4 piedi. Vannoci i villani a tempi delle nevi chon grande ingiegni per fare trabochare gli orsi giù per esse ripe. Queste montagni strette metano i(n) mezo il fiume. Sono a destra e assinistra per isspatio di miglia 20 tutti a detto modo.

Fa vini potenti e assai, … e ‘l vino vale el più uno soldo il boccale e la libbra della vitella un soldo e ‘l sale 10 dinari, e ‘l simile il burro, ed è la loro libbra 30 once, e l’ova un soldo la soldata. (Modern Italian)

It is the infinite alone that cannot be attained, for if it could it would become finite.

As a day well spent makes sleep seem pleasant, so a life well employed makes death pleasant. A life well spent is long.

Thou, O God, sellest us all benefits, at the cost of our toil....

Look at the grace and sweetness of men and women in the street...

The painter strives and competes with nature...There is nothing in all nature without its reason. If you know the reason, you do not need the experience...

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.

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.