Leonardo Da Vinci on Thinking Quotes

"Obstacles do not bend me. Every endeavor is made through effort."

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

"Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it."

"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."

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

"The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature."

"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding."

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

"In time and with water, everything changes."

"Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind."

"Realize that everything connects to everything else."

"The natural desire of good men is knowledge."

"Blame is safer than praise."

"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions."

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

"Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses—especially learn how to see."

"Though I may not, like them, quote authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy — on experience, the mistress of their Masters."

"Wisdom is the daughter of experience."

"Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers."

"The painter who draws merely by practice and eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every object set before it without being conscious of their existence."

"The knowledge of all things is possible."

"Every obstacle is destroyed through rigor."

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

"It is a poor pupil who does not surpass his master."

"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast."

"The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good."

"All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions."

"Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity."

"Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments."

"Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory."

"Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature."

"He who thinks little, errs much."

"One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself."