Leonardo da Vinci

“The knowledge of all things is possible”

“The acquisition of knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.”

“Nessuna cosa si può amare nè odiare, se prima no si ha cognition di quella. (No thing you can love or hate, if you don't know it before.)”

“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...”

“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

“Time abides long enough for those who make use of it.”

“To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among th...”

“Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the memory by not assimilating what it absorbs.”

“Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give f...”

“In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water in itself, and this k...”

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

“People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore those who have ears and hear nothing; they sha...”

“The human bird shall take his first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang.”

“It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.”

“Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.”

“I have found that, in the composition of the human body as compared with the bodies of animals, the organs of sense are duller and coarser. Thus, it is composed of less ingenious instruments...”

“The senses are of the earth, the reason stands apart from them in contemplation.”

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

“There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.”