Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Leonardo da Vinci Painter

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: Republic of Florence
  • Born: Apr 15, 1452
  • Died: May 2, 1519

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci states that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time.

Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter Verrocchio.

Our life is made by the death of others.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.

Life well spent is long.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

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

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

Nature never breaks her own laws.

He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

Water is the driving force of all nature.

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.

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence he is just using his memory.

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.

The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.

Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.

A well-spent day brings happy sleep.

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.