Leonardo Da Vinci: Citáty anglicky (strana 18)

“A luminous body when obscured by a dense atmosphere will appear smaller; as may be seen by the moon or sun veiled by fogs.”

“The wind which passes through the skins of animals will make men leap up: That is the bagpipes, which cause men to dance.”

“The mind passes in an instant from east to west; and all the great incorporeal things resemble these very closely in speed.”

“Life well spent is long.”

“Ivy is of longevity.”

“The cock does not crow till it has thrice flapped its wings; the parrot in moving among boughs never puts its feet excepting where it has first put its beak. Vows are not made till Hope is dead.”

“Blind ignorance misleads us thus and delights with the results of lascivious joys. Because it does not know the true light. Because it does not know what is the true light. Vain splendour takes from us the power of being …. behold! for its vain splendour we go into the fire, thus blind ignorance does mislead us. That is, blind ignorance so misleads us that… O! wretched mortals, open your eyes.”

“Though human ingenuity may make various inventions which, by the help of various machines answering the same end, it will never devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is wanting, and nothing is superfluous, and she needs no counterpoise when she makes limbs proper for motion in the bodies of animals. But she puts into them the soul of the body, which forms them that is the soul of the mother which first constructs in the womb the form of the man and in due time awakens the soul that is to inhabit it.”

“Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing.”

“Truth was the only daughter of Time.”

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

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

“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”

“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.”

“Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.”

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

“Who sows virtue reaps honour.”

“It's easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”

“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.”