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The collection / 606 fragments

Nature.

Explore passages mentioning nature, flower, flowers. Topic suggestions use transparent word matching, not scholarly classification. Editorial meanings and lexical matches are discovery aids, not independent authentication of a quotation.

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606 results · Page 23 of 26Play this collection ▷
01c. 1486 AD
The mind of the painter must be like unto a mirror, which ever takes the colour of the object it reflects, and contains as many images as there are objects before it. Therefore realize, O painter, that thou canst not succeed unless thou art the universal master of imitating by thy art every variety of nature's forms, and this thou canst not do save by perceiving them and retaining them in thy mind; wherefore when thou walkest in the country let thy mind play on various objects, observe now this thing and now that thing, making a store of various objects selected and chosen from those of lesser value. And thou shalt not do as some painters, who, when weary of plying their fancy, dismiss their work from their mind and take exercise in walking for relaxation, but retain fatigue in the mind, which, though they see various objects, does not apprehend them, but often when they meet friends and relations and are saluted by them, they are no more conscious of them than if they had met empty air.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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03c. 1486 AD
In the study of natural causes and reasons light affords the greatest pleasure to the student; among the great facts of mathematics the certainty of demonstration most signally elevates the mind of the student. Perspective must therefore be placed at the head of all human study and discipline, in the field of which the radiant line is rendered complex by the methods of demonstration; in it resides the glory of physics as well as of mathematics, and it is adorned with flowers of both these sciences. The laws of those sciences which are capable of extensive analysis I will confine in brief conclusions, and according to the nature of the material I will interweave mathematical demonstrations, at times deducing results from causes, and at times tracing causes by results. I will add to my conclusions some which are not contained in these, but which can be deduced from them, if the Lord, the Supreme Light, illuminates me, so that I may treat of light.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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04c. 1486 AD
Every bough and every fruit is born above the insertion of its leaf, which serves it as a mother, giving it water from the rain and moisture from the dew which falls on it from above in the night, and often it shields them from the heat of the sun's rays. Therefore, O painter, who lackest such rules, be desirous, in order to escape the blame of those who know, of copying every one of thy objects from nature, and despise not study after the manner of those who work for gain.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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05c. 1486 AD
We are well aware that faults are more easily recognized in the works of others than in our own, and often in blaming the small faults of others thou wilt ignore great ones in thyself. And to avoid such ignorance see that in the first place thy perspective be sound, then acquire a complete knowledge of the measurements of man and other animals, and of good architecture; that is to say, as far as the forms of buildings and other objects which are on the earth are concerned, and these are infinite in number. The more of them that thou knowest, the more praiseworthy will be thy work; and in cases where thou hast no experience do not refuse to draw them from nature.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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06c. 1486 AD
Certainly while a man is painting he should not be loth to hear every opinion: since we know well that a man, although he be not a painter, is cognizant of the forms of another man, and will be able to judge them, whether he is hump-backed or has a shoulder too high or too low, or whether he has a large mouth or nose, or other defects. And if we know that men are capable of giving a correct judgement on the works of nature, much more ought we to acknowledge their competence to judge our faults, since we know how greatly a man may be deceived in his own work; and if thou art not conscious of this in thyself, study it in others and thou wilt profit by their faults. Therefore be desirous to bear with patience the opinions of others, and consider and reflect well whether he who blames has good ground or not to blame thee, and if thou thinkest that he has, amend thy work; and if not, act as though thou hadst not heard him, and if he should be a man thou esteemest show him by reasoning where his mistake lies.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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08c. 1486 AD
Radically wrong is the procedure of some masters who are in the habit of repeating the same themes in the same episodes, and whose types of beauty are likewise the same, for in nature they are never repeated, so that if all the beauties of equal excellence were to come to life again they would compose a larger population than that now existing in our century, and since in the present century no one person is precisely similar to another, so would it be among the beauties mentioned above.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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09c. 1486 AD
That which is entirely devoid of light is all darkness; as the night is like this and you wish to represent a night subject, represent a great fire, so that the object which is nearest to the fire may be tinged with its colour, since the object which is nearest the fire will participate most in its nature. And as you will make the fire red, all the objects which it illumines must be red also, and those which are farther off from the fire will be dyed to a greater extent by the dark colour of night. The figures which are between you and the fire appear dark from the obscurity of the night, not from the glow of the firelight, and those which are at the side are half dark and half ruddy, and those which are visible beyond the edge of the flames will be altogether lighted up by the red glow against a black background. As to their action, make those which are near shield themselves with their hands and cloaks against the intense heat with averted faces as though about to flee; with regard to those who are farther off, represent them chiefly in the act of raising their hands to their eyes, dazzled by the intense glare.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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10c. 1486 AD
Envy offends with false infamy, that is to say, by detraction which frightens virtue. Envy must be represented with the hands raised to heaven in contempt, because if she could she would use her power against God. Make her face covered with a goodly mark; show her as wounded in the eye by a palm-branch, and wounded in the ear by laurel and myrtle, to signify that victory and truth offend her. Draw many thunderbolts proceeding from her as a symbol of her evil-speaking. Make her lean and shrivelled up, because she is continual dissolution. Make her heart gnawed by a swelling serpent. Make her a quiver full of tongues for arrows, because she often offends with these. Make her a leopard's skin, because the leopard kills the lion through envy and by deceit. Place a vase in her hand full of flowers, and let it be full also of scorpions, toads and other reptiles. Let her ride Death, because Envy, which is undying, never wearies of sovereignty. Make her a bridle loaded with divers arms, because her weapons are all deadly. As soon as virtue is born it begets envy which attacks it; and sooner will there exist a body without a shadow than virtue unaccompanied by envy.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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11c. 1486 AD
The power of the projecting force increases in proportion as the object projected is smaller; the acceleration of the motion increases to infinity proportionately to this diminution. It would follow that an atom would be almost as rapid as the imagination or the eye, which in a moment attains to the height of the stars, and consequently its voyage would be infinite, because the thing which can be infinitely diminished would have an infinite velocity and would travel on an infinite course (because every continuous quantity is divisible to infinity). And this opinion is condemned by reason and consequently by experience. Thus, you who observe rely not on authors who have merely by their imagination wished to be interpreters between nature and man, but on those alone who have applied their minds not to the hints of nature but to the results of their experience. And you must realize the deceptiveness of experiments; because those which often appear to be one and the same are often different, as is shown here.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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13c. 1486 AD
It is proved that the sun is by nature hot and not cold, as has already been stated. If rays of fire play on a concave mirror when it is cold, the rays refracted by the mirror will be hotter than the fire. The rays emitted from a sphere of glass filled with cold water, which are reflected from a fire, will be warmer than the fire. It follows from these two experiments that the heat of the rays reflected by the mirror or the sphere of cold water are hot by virtue, and not because the mirror or the sphere is hot; and in this case it occurs that the sun, passing through these bodies, heats them by its virtue. And owing to this they have inferred that the sun is not hot,—which by the aforesaid experiments has been proved to be exceedingly hot, by the experiment of the mirror and the sphere, which are cold in themselves, and reflect the hot rays of the fire and render them hotter, because the first cause is hot; and the same thing occurs as regards the sun, which, being hot in itself, and passing through these cold mirrors, refracts great heat. It is not the light of the sun which gives warmth, but its natural heat.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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16c. 1486 AD
The water which rises in the mountains is the blood which keeps the mountain alive, and through this conduit or vein, nature, the helper of her creatures, prompt in the desire to repair the loss of the moisture expended, proffers the desired aid abundantly; just as in a stricken spot in man you will see, owing to the aid which is brought, the blood abound under the skin in a swelling, so as to succour the spot which has been stricken; likewise, in the case of the vine, when it is cut at its extremity, nature causes its moisture to rise from the lowest root to the end of the extremity which has been cut, and when this moisture has been expended nature ceases not to supply it with vital moisture to the end of its life.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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19c. 1486 AD
Before I proceed further I will make some experiments, because it is my intention to cite the experiment first and then to demonstrate by reasoning how such an experiment must necessarily take effect in such a manner. And this is the true rule by which investigations of natural phenomena must proceed; and although nature herself begins from the reason and ends in the result, we must pursue the contrary course and begin, as I said above, from experience and by it seek out the reason.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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20c. 1486 AD
We know definitely that sight is infinitely swift and in an instant of time perceives countless shapes, nevertheless it only sees one object at a time. Let us take an example. You, O reader, will see the whole of this written page at a glance, and you will instantly realize that it is full of various letters, but you will not realize at that moment what these letters are nor what they signify; wherefore you will have to proceed word by word and line by line to take cognizance of these letters. Again, if you wish to reach the summit of a building you must mount step by step, otherwise it will be impossible for you to reach the summit. And therefore I say to you whom nature has drawn to this art, if you wish to attain to a thorough knowledge of the forms of objects, you will begin by studying the details, and not proceed to the second until you have committed the first to memory and mastered it in practice, and if you do otherwise you will be wasting your time and protracting your studies. And remember first of all to acquire diligence, which signifies speed.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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21c. 1486 AD
Of the nature of the eye. Here are the forms, here the colours, here the form of every part of the universe are concentrated in a point, and that point is so great a marvel! O marvellous and stupendous necessity! thou dost compel by thy law, and by the most direct path, every effect to proceed from its cause. These things are verily miracles! I wrote in my Anatomy how in so small a space the visual faculty can be reproduced and formed again in its whole expanse.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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22c. 1486 AD
The pupil of the eye dilates and contracts in proportion to the variety of bright and dark objects which are reflected in it. In this case nature has afforded compensation to the visual faculty by contracting the pupil of the eye when it is offended by excess of light and by causing it to dilate when offended by excess of darkness, like the opening of the purse. And nature here behaves like the man who has too much light in his house and closes half the window, or more or less of it according to need; and when night comes he opens the window altogether so as to see better inside his house, and nature here adopts a continued process of compensation, by continually regulating and readjusting the expansion and contracting of the pupil, in proportion to the aforesaid obscurity and light which are continually reflected in it.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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23c. 1486 AD
This is a difficult question to answer, but I will nevertheless state my opinion. Water, which is clothed with air, desires naturally to cleave to its sphere because in this position it is without gravity. This gravity is twofold,—the gravity of the whole which tends to the centre of the elements, and the gravity which tends to the centre of the waters of the spherical orb; if this were not so the water would form a half sphere only, which is the sphere described from the centre upwards. But I see no means in the human mind of acquiring knowledge with regard to this. We must say, as we say of the magnet which attracts iron, that such a virtue is an occult property of which there is an infinite quantity in nature.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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24c. 1486 AD
If the water which rises on the summits of the mountains comes from the sea, whence it is propelled by its weight to a greater height than that of the mountains, why has this portion of the element of water the power to elevate itself to such an altitude and to penetrate the earth by so great an expenditure of labour and time, when the residue of the element of water, whose only obstacle is the air which does not impede it, is not able to raise itself to a similar altitude? And thou who didst devise this theory, go and study nature, so that thou mayst cease to acquire such opinions of which thou hast made so great a collection, together with the capital and interest which thou dost possess.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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