Leonardo Da Vinci

“Suddenly there arose in me two contrary emotions, fear and desire—fear of the threatening dark cave, desire to see whether there were any marvelous thing within.”

This sentence distills Leonardo’s essential character: his insatiable curiosity triumphing over fear. The contrast between darkness and marvels captures a recurring theme in his life—his drive to explore, understand, and render even the most shadowed mysteries. Isaacson uses this recollection not only as a literal memory but also as a metaphor for Leonardo’s lifelong pursuit of both knowledge and wonder.

“The first intention of the painter is to make a flat surface display a body as if modeled and separated from this plane, and he who surpasses others in this skill deserves most praise.”

This statement expresses Leonardo’s view that painting was a science of illusion, grounded in observation and technique. By emphasizing the transformation of flatness into volume through light and shadow, he articulates his lifelong goal of capturing dimensional reality on canvas. This belief would guide his innovations in chiaroscuro and sfumato.

“When I made a Christ-child you put me in prison, and now if I show him grown up you will do worse to me.”

This line, scribbled in Leonardo’s notebook years after his sodomy accusation, speaks to his enduring anxiety over persecution. It reveals the tension between his artistic vision—especially of the idealized male form—and the repressive moral codes of his time. The bitterness and irony in the line reflect both defiance and vulnerability.

“Let only that which is good looking be seen on the upper level of the city.”

This quote encapsulates Leonardo’s vision for an ideal city, where beauty and sanitation were carefully separated. It reflects his Renaissance belief in rational urban planning—linking aesthetics, public health, and engineering. The directive tone shows how his artistic values deeply influenced his civic designs.

“The beauty of a notebook is that it indulges provisional thoughts, half-finished ideas, unpolished sketches, and drafts for treatises not yet refined.”

Isaacson’s description of Leonardo’s notebooks honors the power of exploration and imperfection. Rather than polished treatises, they are living documents of a mind in motion. The quote invites readers to value process over product, revealing the generative space in which Leonardo’s genius thrived.

“It required him to execute his fantasies. Unlike paintings, performances had real deadlines.”

Court entertainments forced Leonardo to act on his ideas—an important contrast to his more leisurely approach to painting. The hard deadline of a performance pushed him to complete projects that might otherwise remain unfinished. Isaacson uses this quote to suggest that structure and constraint often fueled Leonardo’s creativity.

“Pleasure and Pain are represented as twins, because there never is one without the other.”

This allegorical note from Leonardo captures the emotional dualities that haunted his personal and artistic life. Whether in his relationships or in his studies of beauty and decay, Leonardo acknowledged the intertwined nature of joy and suffering. The symmetry of the phrase also reflects his obsession with balance and proportion.

“Leonardo—as an artist, a natural philosopher, and a stand-in for all of humanity—peers at himself with furrowed brow and tries to grasp the secrets of his own nature.”

Isaacson uses this moment to frame Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man not only as a study in geometry but as a metaphor for self-exploration. The furrowed brow becomes a symbol of Renaissance inquiry—where understanding the body meant understanding the cosmos. Leonardo’s search for proportion was also a search for meaning.

“Of the horse I will say nothing, for I know the times.”

This poignant line shows Leonardo’s resignation in the face of war. His grand equestrian statue for Ludovico Sforza was never cast, and the clay model was destroyed. The quote reflects his awareness that artistic dreams are often crushed by historical realities—and his characteristic understatement masks quiet heartbreak.

“Those who are in love with practice without theoretical knowledge are like the sailor who goes onto a ship without rudder or compass.”

Leonardo evolved from a practitioner skeptical of book learning to a scientist who understood the power of theory. The metaphor of the rudderless sailor warns against unguided experimentation. The quote marks a turning point in his intellectual life: a blend of empiricism and philosophy.

“The large bird will take its first flight from the back of the great Swan, filling the universe with amazement.”

This poetic prophecy closes Leonardo’s studies on flight. The “great Swan” refers to Monte Ceceri, where he hoped a glider might take flight. The language is mythic, blending scientific aspiration with visionary imagination—a soaring example of how Leonardo fused dream and design.

“Among the impossible delusions of man is the search for continuous motion, called by some perpetual wheel.”

Leonardo’s dismissal of perpetual motion shows his growing realism as an inventor. While many Renaissance thinkers pursued such fantasies, he concluded they violated natural law. Yet the fascination remains part of his character—a visionary unafraid to chase the impossible, even as he recognized its limits.

“There is no certainty in sciences where mathematics cannot be applied.”

This declaration reveals Leonardo’s deepening commitment to mathematical precision. Though not formally trained, he came to see math—especially geometry—as the language of nature. It signals his movement toward a more structured, theoretical understanding of art and science alike.

“In painting, the actions of the figures are, in all cases, expressive of the purpose of their minds.”

Leonardo believed that external gestures should reflect internal thought—a principle that guided both his anatomy studies and his painting. It emphasizes his attention to subtle expression and psychological realism. In many ways, it also prefigures modern portraiture and performance.

“Let your figures have actions appropriate to what they are intended to think or say, and these will be well learned by imitating the deaf.”

Leonardo admired how deaf individuals communicated through expressive gestures. This observation influenced his art, especially in narrative paintings like Virgin of the Rocks. It reflects his belief that movement could be a form of language, conveying the unseen workings of the soul.

“Her emotions seem to be revealed […] by the look in her eyes, the enigma of her smile, and the erotic way she clutches and caresses the ermine.”

This richly descriptive line reveals Leonardo’s ability to capture layered emotion in portraiture. Cecilia Gallerani’s sensuality is rendered not explicitly but through subtle gesture. The painting becomes a dance between form and feeling, between control and revelation.

“Do not edge contours with a definite outline, because the contours are lines, and they are invisible.”

Leonardo’s rejection of hard outlines reflects his sfumato technique and his belief in optical realism. This idea challenged classical rules and marked a major innovation in Western art. For Leonardo, truth lay not in precision but in subtle transition—in the soft blur of reality itself.

“Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least.”

This quote defends Leonardo’s notoriously slow work pace as contemplative rather than idle. Genius, he argues, requires gestation. It’s a theme repeated throughout his life: that breakthroughs often emerge not from frantic activity, but from deep, quiet reflection.

“It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work.”

This lament highlights the tension between Leonardo’s creative ambitions and financial reality. Despite his fame, he was often pulled away from meaningful work by economic necessity. The tone is restrained, but the underlying frustration reveals the human cost of genius.

“In truth, his mathematical experiments have absorbed his thoughts so entirely that he cannot bear the sight of a paintbrush.”

Leonardo’s obsession with science sometimes eclipsed his role as a painter. This quote, from a contemporary observer, shows the shifting center of his identity. It’s also a source of irritation for patrons—and a clue to why so many commissions were left unfinished.

“Save me from strife and battle, a most beastly madness.”

Leonardo’s blunt condemnation of war underscores the ethical tension in his work for Cesare Borgia. Though a military engineer, he was also a pacifist. This line reveals the contradiction: his designs could serve violence, even as he abhorred it.

“The river that is to be diverted from one course to another must be coaxed and not treated roughly.”

Here, Leonardo reveals a deep respect for nature, even in manipulation. His engineering philosophy was one of collaboration, not domination. The image of “coaxing” a river is both technically astute and metaphorically rich.

“These cartoons stood one in the Medici Palace and the other in the Pope’s Hall, and […] they served as the school of the world.”

Benvenuto Cellini’s remark reflects the enormous influence of Leonardo’s and Michelangelo’s unfinished battle scenes. Though never completed, their studies inspired generations. The phrase “school of the world” elevates their failure into a kind of enduring triumph.