Leonardo Da Vinci on Truth Quotes

"Falsehood is so utterly vile that though it should praise the greatest things, it would take away from the greatness of God."

"Truth is so excellent in itself that, even if it dwells on humble matters, it is still infinitely above uncertainty and lies."

"In nature there is no effect without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment."

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

"The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of its existence."

"Wisdom is the daughter of experience."

"He who neglects the real for the sake of the ideal will learn how to work his own ruin."

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

"I am fully aware that the fact of my not being a man of letters may cause certain arrogant persons to think they may with reason censure me... they do not know that my matters are to be expounded by experience rather than by their words."

"Truth was at last the only daughter of time."

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

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

"Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known."

"Experience does not err; it is only your judgment that errs in promising itself results which are not caused by your experiments."

"Where there is most feeling, there is also most martyrdom for the truth."

"He who thinks little, errs much."

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

"To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things, it would take off something from God's grace."

"The mind that is always used to the shadows of things can with difficulty undergo the light of truth."

"Obstacles cannot bend me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve."

"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."

"Shun those studies in which the result dies with the worker."

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory."

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

"The truth of things is the food of all fine minds."

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

"One should not desire the impossible."

"Experience, the interpreter between fertile nature and the human race, teaches us that which this nature works among mortals."

"A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not."

"Nature never breaks her own laws."

"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 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."

"Truth is so excellent, that if it but praises but small things they become noble."