Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

In her (nature's) inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.

Nature is perfect.

Everything man is doing in architecture is to try to go against nature. Of course we have to understand nature to know how far we have to go against nature. The secret, I think, of the future is not doing too much. All architects have the tendency to do too much.

Well I do find the beauty in animals. I find beauty everywhere. I find beauty in my garden.

Complexity excites the mind, and order rewards it. In the garden, one finds both, including vanishingly small orders too complex to spot, and orders so vast the mind struggles to embrace them.

Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.

There is no better designer then nature

Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

Butterflies and birds are like one perfect teaspoon of creation.

Nothing in nature takes more than what it needs

In Nature, all is useful, all is beautiful

Look into a flower and you see the whole cosmos.

Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection.

The natural is so awesome that we need not go beyond it.

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on Simplicity.

The best way to manage anything is by making use of its own nature.

Reality favors symmetry.

Let Nature be your teacher

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other. Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.

Every spring I hear the thrush singing in the glowing woods he is only passing through. His voice is deep, then he lifts it until it seems to fall from the sky. I am thrilled. I am grateful. Then, by the end of morning, he's gone, nothing but silence out of the tree where he rested for a night. And this I find acceptable. Not enough is a poor life. But too much is, well, too much. Imagine Verdi or Mahler every day, all day. It would exhaust anyone.

Let the beauty we love do what we do.

The frost makes a flower, the dew makes a star.

Given the cause nature produces the effect in the briefest manner that it can employ.

Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity.