Scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer: Leonardo da Vinci was the original Renaissance Man. For someone like me, with interests and passions that vacillate between several fields, I often feel like I am creatively being pulled in too many directions at once. In this way, Leonardo da Vinci is a testament to an eclectic mind, the ultimate ADD Superman. He reminds me that not only can one gain a knowledge of varying spheres of knwledge, one can become a master at many, if not all.
“He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.“
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.“
“Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.“
“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.“
“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.“
“Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.“
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.“
“Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.“
“Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.“
“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.“
“He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.“
“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.“
“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.“
“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation… even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.“
“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.“
“There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.“
“I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.“
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.“
