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I would venture to affirm that a man cannot attain excellence if he satisfy the ignorant and not those of his own craft, and if he be not 'singular' or 'distant,' or whatever you like to call him.

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
Men
Craft
Like
Crafts
Excellence
Affirm
Ignorant
Singular
Call
Satisfy
Whatever
Attain
Cannot
Venture
Would
Distant

More quotes by Leonardo da Vinci

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The painter who draws by practise and judgment of the eye without the use of reason is like the mirror which reproduces within itself all the objects which are set opposite to it without knowledge of the same.
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Nothing is more apt to deceive us than our own judgment of our work. We derive more benefit from having our faults pointed out by our enemies than from hearing the opinions of friends.
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Music... is the shaping of the invisible.
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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.
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Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.
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Love, Fear, and Esteem, - Write these on three stones.
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Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory.
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If you do not rest on the good foundation of nature, you will labour with little honor and less profit.
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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.
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And you who wish to represent by words the form of man and all the aspects of his membrification, relinquish that idea. For the more minutely you describe the more you will confine the mind of the reader, and the more you will keep him from the knowledge of the thing described. And so it is necessary to draw and to describe.
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He who despises painting has no love for the philosophy in nature.
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To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.
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The deeper the feeling, the greater the pain
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Shadows which you see with difficulty, and whose boundaries you cannot define... these you should not represent as finished or sharply defined, for the result would be that your work would seem wooden.
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Not to appreciate life, all of life, is not to deserve it.
Leonardo da Vinci
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I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.
Leonardo da Vinci
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My body is not a tomb for animals.
Leonardo da Vinci
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For youth, everything is sport.
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Of several bodies, all equally large and equally distant, that which is most brightly illuminated will appear to the eye nearest and largest.
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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