Leonardo da Vinci was a true Renaissance man excelling as an artist, scientist, and inventor during the Italian Renaissance. He kept many journals where he drew pictures and wrote about musical instruments, helicopters, and the human body. Leonardo’s famous paintings include the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

Below are the most fascinating and thought provoking Leonardo da Vinci quotes:

1. “While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.” –Leonardo da Vinci

2. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” –Leonardo da Vinci

3. “Learning never exhausts the mind.” –Leonardo da Vinci

4. “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” –Leonardo da Vinci

5. “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” –Leonardo da Vinci

6. “Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?” –Leonardo da Vinci

7. “Who sows virtue reaps honor.” –Leonardo da Vinci

8. “Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.” –Leonardo da Vinci

9. “All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.” –Leonardo da Vinci

10. “As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.” –Leonardo da Vinci

Check out these inspirational quotes from another great thinker, Sir Isaac Newton.

11. “Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.” –Leonardo da Vinci

12. “Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.”-Leonardo da Vinci

13. “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”-Leonardo da Vinci

14. “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.”-Leonardo da Vinci

15. “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.”-Leonardo da Vinci

16. “There are four powers: memory and intellect, desire and covetousness. The two first are mental and the others sensual. The three senses sight, hearing, and smell cannot well be prevented; touch and taste not at all.”-Leonardo da Vinci

17. “Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.” –Leonardo da Vinci

18. “There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.”-Leonardo da Vinci

19. “I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.”-Leonardo da Vinci

20. “He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.”-Leonardo da Vinci

21. “Nature never breaks her own laws.” –Leonardo da Vinci

Which one of these quotes resonates most with you and why?