Leonardo da Vinci on Love

"Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who enters a ship without a helm or a compass, and who never can be certain whither he is going."

"I obey Thee Lord, first for the love I ought, in all reason to bear Thee; secondly for that Thou canst shorten or prolong the lives of men."

"Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love."

"Intellectual passion drives out sensuality."

"That which was at first bound, cast out and rent by many and various beaters will be respected and honoured, and its precepts will be listened to with reverence and love."

"Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading."

"To enjoy—to love a thing for its own sake and for no other reason."

"Love, Fear, and Esteem, — Write these on three stones."

"We ought not to desire the impossible."

"When that which loves is united to the thing beloved it can rest there; when the burden is laid down it finds rest there. There will be eternal fame also for the inhabitants of that town, constructed and enlarged by him."

"The lover is moved by the beloved object as the senses are by sensual objects; and they unite and become one and the same thing. The work is the first thing born of this union; if the thing loved is base the lover becomes base."

"The unicorn, through its intemperance and not knowing how to control itself, for the love it bears to fair maidens forgets its ferocity and wildness; and laying aside all fear it will go up to a seated damsel and go to sleep in her lap, and thus the hunters take it."

"When you have drawn the same thing so many times that it seems that you know it by heart try to do it without the model; but having a tracing made of the model upon a thin piece of smooth glass and lay this upon the drawing you have made without the model. ...where you find that you have erred bear it in mind in order not to make the mistake again. ...if you cannot procure smooth glass to make a tracing... take a piece of very fine parchment well oiled and then dried, and when you have used it for for one drawing you can wipe this out with a sponge and do a second."

"The Caladrius is a bird of which it is related that, when it is carried into the presence of a sick person, if the sick man is going to die, the bird turns away its head and never looks at him; but if the sick man is to be saved the bird never loses sight of him but is the cause of curing him of all his sickness. Like unto this is the love of virtue. It never looks at any vile or base thing, but rather clings always to pure and virtuous things and takes up its abode in a noble heart; as the birds do in green woods on flowery branches. And this Love shows itself more in adversity than in prosperity; as light does, which shines most where the place is darkest."