Authors / Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci quotes

1452–1519 · Italian painter, engineer and inventor

Leonardo filled thousands of notebook pages with mirror-writing. We quote J. P. Richter's translation of the notebooks.

1 real · 1 not theirs

1 quotes traced to Leonardo da Vinci's own work or a reliable witness.

Sourced

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity… even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.

Source: Notebooks, tr. J. P. Richter

1 famous lines credited to Leonardo da Vinci that are misquoted, unsourced or belong to someone else.

Not theirs

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Actually: Not in Leonardo's notebooks. The line appears in the 20th century, with no link to him.