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In fact, whatever exists in the universe, in essence, in appearance, in the imagination, the painter has first in his mind and then in his hands ... it lies in his power to create them . . .

Leonardo da Vinci

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Leonardo da Vinci
Age: 67 †
Born: 1452
Born: April 15
Died: 1519
Died: May 2
Anatomist
Architect
Astronomer
Botanist
Caricaturist
Chemist
Civil Engineer
Composer
Diplomat
Engineer
Inventor
Mathematician
Musician
Mind
Fact
Appearance
Universe
Exists
Facts
Essence
Art
Lies
Hands
Create
Power
Imagination
Firsts
Lying
First
Whatever
Painter

More quotes by Leonardo da Vinci

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I love those who can smile in trouble.
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Why seek to embarrass [the artist] with vanities foreign to his quietness? Know you not that certain sciences require the whole man, leaving no part of him at leisure for your trifles?
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Here is a thing which the more you fear and avoid it the nearer you approach to it, and this is misery the more you flee from it the more miserable and restless you will become.
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My body is not a tomb for animals.
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We must doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, but how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and the soul.
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O admirable necessity! O powerful action! What mind can penetrate your nature? What language can express this marvel? None, to be sure. This is where human discourse turns toward the contemplation of the divine.
Leonardo da Vinci
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The painter who has no doubt about his own ability will attain very little.
Leonardo da Vinci
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If you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting.
Leonardo da Vinci
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Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.
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Wherever good fortune enters, envy lays siege to the place and attacks it and when it departs, sorrow and repentance remain behind.
Leonardo da Vinci
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The instant the atmosphere is illuminated it will be filled with an infinite number of images which are produced by the various bodies and colours assembled in it. And the eye is the target, a lodestone, of these images.
Leonardo da Vinci
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I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.
Leonardo da Vinci
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Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, labor in vain.
Leonardo da Vinci
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As regards this vice, we read that the peacock is more guilty of it than any other animal. For it is always contemplating the beauty of its tail, which it spreads in the form of a wheel, and by its cries attracts to itself the gaze of the creatures that surround it. And this is the last vice to be conquered.
Leonardo da Vinci
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The color of the object illuminated partakes of the color of that which illuminates it.
Leonardo da Vinci
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He who walks straight rarely falls.
Leonardo da Vinci
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Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.
Leonardo da Vinci
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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.
Leonardo da Vinci
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A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements.
Leonardo da Vinci
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Nature varies the seed according to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the world.
Leonardo da Vinci