Leonardo da Vinci Body Quotations

I have found that, in the composition of the human body as compared with the bodies of animals, the organs of sense are duller and coarser. Thus, it is composed of less ingenious instruments, and of spaces less capacious for receiving the faculties of sense.

Medicine is the restoration of discordant elements; sickness is the discord of the elements infused into the living body.

The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.

Our body is dependant on Heaven and Heaven on the Spirit.

The spirit desires to remain with its body, because, without the organic instruments of that body, it can neither act, nor feel anything.

Affective gestures pointing to things near either in time or space should be made with the hand not very far from the body of the person pointing; and if these things are distant, the hand of the painter should be more extended and the face turned toward the person to whom he is addressing the demonstration.

The study of what is excellent is food for the mind and body.

If you are representing a white body let it be surrounded by ample space, because as white has no colour of its own, it is tinged and altered in some degree by the colour of the objects surrounding it

The boundaries of bodies are the least of all things.

Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.

The first object of the painter is to make a flat plane appear as a body in relief and projecting from that plane

The soul is content to stay imprisoned in the human body... for through the eyes all the various things of nature are represented to the soul.

The soul can never be corrupted with the corruption of the body, but it is like the wind which causes the sound of the organ, and which ceases to produce a good effect when a pipe is spoilt.

The imagination is to the effect as the shadow to the opaque body which causes the shadow.

My body will not be a tomb for other creatures.

To discover the soul living in somebody's body, we watch the surrounding of the body, and if it's messy and disordered, so is the soul.

Thirst will parch your tongue and your body will waste through lack of sleep ere you can describe in words that which painting instantly sets before the eye.

The eye is the window of the human body through which it feels its way and enjoys the beauty of the world.

We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.

The body of the earth is of the nature of a fish... because it draws water as its breath instead of air.

My body is not a tomb for animals.

A luminous body will appear more brilliant in proportion as it is surrounded by deeper shadow.