Accustom yourself to hold a plummet in your hand, that you may judge of the bearing of the parts.

Those which relax cease to appear in proportion as the others pull strongly and become apparent.

The union in Leonardo of reality to mystery has often been shared by genius in other fields.

Thoughts on Art and Life by da Vinci Leonardo is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. Read this book online for free on HackerNoon!

A man never ascends or descends, nor walks at all in any direction, without raising the heel of the back foot.

After that, trace upon paper what you have drawn on the glass, which tracing you may paint at pleasure, observing the aerial perspective.

Obtain knowledge first, and then proceed to practice, which is born of knowledge.

The most remote will only be shading their eyes with their hands, as if hurt by the too great glare.

Unconscious life remains in what is dead, which when reunited to the stomach of living men, reacquires sentient and conscious life.

Those who laugh have them turned upwards, and the brows open and extended.

In general, all contraries give a particular force and brilliancy of effect by their opposition.

That part will be the brightest which receives the reflected light between angles the most nearly equal.

The lighter a colour is in its nature, the more so it will appear when removed to some distance; but with dark colours it is quite the reverse.

Whatever object you intend to represent is to be supposed situated in a particular light, and that entirely of your own choosing.

No colour appears uniform and equal in all its parts unless it terminate on a ground of the same colour.

The surface of those bodies will partake most of the colour of the object that reflects it, which receive that reflexion by the most nearly equal angles.

Let the colours vanish in proportion as the objects diminish in size, according to the distance.

I have seen a woman dressed in black, with a white veil over her head, which appeared twice as large as her shoulders covered with black.

This happens also when, on account of the rays of the setting or rising sun, a dark cloud appears higher than another which is light.

How many philosophers, born to great riches, have given them away, that they might not be retarded in their pursuits!