The Notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci

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

We know very well that errors are better recognised in the works of others than in our own; and that often, while reproving little faults in others, you may ignore great ones in yourself

The sorest misfortune is when your views are in advance of your work.

The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present.

Life if well spent, is long.

The sorest misfortune is when your views are in advance of your work.

picture or representation of human figures ought to be done in such a way as that the spectator may easily recognise, by means of their attitudes, the purpose in their minds

When you have well learnt perspective and have by heart the parts and forms of objects, you must go about, and constantly, as you go, observe, note and consider the circumstances and behaviour of men in talking, quarrelling or laughing or fighting together – the action of the men themselves and the actions of the bystanders, who separate them or who look on. And take a note of them with slight strokes, in a little book which you should always carry with you. And it should be of tinted paper, that it may not be rubbed out, but change the old when full for a new one; since these things should not be rubbed out but preserved with great care;

I say that first you ought to learn the limbs and their mechanism, and having this knowledge, their actions should come next, according to the circumstances in which they occur in man.

In going up stairs, if you place your hands on your knees all the labour taken by the arms is removed from the sinews at the back of the knees.

man when he lies down is reduced to one ninth of his height.