Contact
Privacy
Book: Leonardo Da Vinci
Quotes of Book: Leonardo Da Vinci
TOP TAGS :colonizationjeansworriescommunismscarygeopoliticslisthandsomeness

  1. Walter Isaacson _ Leonardo Da Vinci

    While painting The Last Supper, Leonardo would sometimes stare at the work for an hour, finally make one small stroke, and then leave. He told Duke Ludovico that creativity requires time for ideas to marinate and intuitions to gel. "Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least," he explained, "for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form." Most of us don't need advice to procrastinate; we do it naturally. But procrastinating like Leonardo requires work: it involves gathering all the possible facts and ideas, and only after that allowing the collection to simmer.
    book-quote

  2. Walter Isaacson _ Leonardo Da Vinci

    He was a man of outstanding beauty and infinite grace," Vasari said of him. "He was striking and handsome, and his great presence brought comfort to the most troubled soul.
    book-quote

  3. Walter Isaacson _ Leonardo Da Vinci

    the ability to make connections across disciplines-arts and sciences, humanities and technology-is a key to innovation, imagination, and genius.
    book-quote

  4. Walter Isaacson _ Leonardo Da Vinci

    Even some of his commissions that were completed, or almost so-Ginevra de' Benci and the Mona Lisa, for example-were never delivered to clients. Leonardo clung to his favorite works, carried them with him when he moved, and returned to them when he had new ideas. He certainly did that with the Saint Jerome, and he may have planned to do the same with the Adoration of the Magi, which he entrusted to Ginevra's brother for safekeeping but never sold or gave away. He did not like to let go. That is why he would die with some of his masterpieces still near his bedside. As frustrating as it is to us today, there was a poignant and inspiring aspect to Leonardo's unwillingness to declare a painting done and relinquish it: he knew that there was always more he might learn, new techniques he might master, and further inspirations that might strike him. And he was right.
    book-quote
Categories