Leonardo da Vinci

Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.

As a day well spent makes sleep seem pleasant, so a life well employed makes death pleasant. A life well spent is long.

truovasi di miglio i(n) miglio bone osteriee. (Ancient Italian)

Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.

Look at the grace and sweetness of men and women in the street...

Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.

Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen. These two arts, you may call them both either poetry or painting, have here interchanged the senses by which they penetrate to the intellect.

The painter strives and competes with nature...There is nothing in all nature without its reason. If you know the reason, you do not need the experience...

Thou, O God, sellest us all benefits, at the cost of our toil....

It is the infinite alone that cannot be attained, for if it could it would become finite.