Leonardo da Vinci on Beauty

"The city will gain beauty worthy of its name and to you it will be useful by its revenues, and the eternal fame of its aggrandizement."

"Disgrace should be represented upside down, because all her deeds are contrary to God and tend to hell."

"If you transmit the rays of the sun through a hole in the shape of a star you will see a beautiful effect of perspective in the spot where the sun's rays fall."

"Observe the light and consider its beauty. Blink your eye and look at it. That which you see was not there at first, and that which was there is there no more."

"Whenever you make a figure of a man or of some graceful animal remember to avoid making it seem wooden; that is it should move with counterpoise and balance in such a way as not to seem a block of wood."

"Experience shows us that the air must have darkness beyond it and yet it appears blue. If you produce a small quantity of smoke from dry wood and the rays of the sun fall on this smoke, and if you then place behind the smoke a piece of black velvet on which the sun does not shine, you will see that all the smoke which is between the eye and the black stuff will appear of a beautiful blue colour. And if instead of the velvet you place a white cloth smoke, that is too thick smoke, hinders, and too thin smoke does not produce, the perfection of this blue colour. Hence a moderate amount of smoke produces the finest blue."