Instrumental or mechanical science is the noblest and above all others, the most useful.
Weight is caused by one element being situated in another; and it moves by the shortest line towards its centre, not by its own choice, not because the centre draws it to itself, but because the other intervening element cannot withstand it.
Of the four elements water is the second in weight and the second in respect of mobility. It is never at rest until it unites with the sea...
What induces you, oh man, to depart from your home in town, to leave parents and friends, and go to the countryside over mountains and valleys, if it is not for the beauty of the world of nature?
Who would believe that so small a space could contain the images of all the universe?
The sun gives spirit and life to the plants and the earth nourishes them with moisture.
If you are on the side whence the wind is blowing you will see the trees looking much lighter than you would see them on the other sides; and this is due to the fact that the wind turns up the reverse side of the leaves which in all trees is much whiter than the upper side.
Of several bodies all equally larger and distant, that most brightly illuminated will appear to the eye nearest and largest.
I say that the power of vision extends through the visual rays to the surface of non-transparent bodies, while the power possessed by these bodies extends to the power of vision.
A single and distinct luminous body causes stronger relief in the objects than a diffused light; as may be seen by comparing one side of a landscape illuminated by the sun, and one overshadowed by clouds, and illuminated only by the diffused light of the atmosphere.
Music may be called the sister of painting, for she is dependent upon hearing, the sense which comes second and her harmony is composed of the union of proportional parts sounded simultaneously, rising and falling in one or more harmonic rhythms.
Fear arises sooner than anything else.
Black is like a broken vessel, which is deprived of the capacity to contain anything.
To me it seems that those sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, first-hand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has passed through one of the five senses.
The Medici created and destroyed me.
The length of a man’s outspread arms is equal to his height.
It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.
Perspective is the rein and rudder of painting.
The mole has very small eyes and it always lives under ground; and it lives as long as it is in the dark but when it comes into the light it dies immediately, because it becomes known; – and so it is with lies.
The fox when it sees a flock of herons or magpies or birds of that kind, suddenly flings himself on the ground with his mouth open to look as he were dead; and these birds want to peck at his tongue, and he bites off their heads.