Quotes by Polymaths - Page 4

There is nothing which deceives us as much as our own judgement.
Leonardo da Vinci
He who does not value life does not deserve it.
Leonardo da Vinci
You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.
Leonardo da Vinci
Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.
Francis Galton
O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex praeceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus.translation (non-literal):O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher of virtues and expeller of vices! Just a single day lived well and according to your lessons is to be preferred to an eternity of errors.— Cicero, As quoted in Ben Franklin’s Autobiography
Benjamin Franklin
I think all the heretics I have known have been virtuous men. They have the virtue of fortitude, or they would not venture to own their heresy; and they cannot afford to be deficient in any of the other virtues, as they would give advantage to their many enemies; and they have not, like orthodox sinners, such a number of friends to excuse or justify them.
Benjamin Franklin
To be proud of virtue, is to poison yourself with the Antidote.
Benjamin Franklin
Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.
Benjamin Franklin
Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have ad
Benjamin Franklin
I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.
Leonardo da Vinci
The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
Leonardo da Vinci
He who wishes to be rich within a day, will be hanged within a year.
Leonardo da Vinci
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you...
Benjamin Franklin
A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro' fear of being thought to have but little.
Benjamin Franklin
In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.
Benjamin Franklin
If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.
Benjamin Franklin
So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.
Benjamin Franklin
I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an horse.
Thomas Browne
The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary.
Benjamin Franklin
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Benjamin Franklin
I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.
Leonardo da Vinci
To become an artist you have to be curious.
Leonardo da Vinci
But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.
Thomas Browne
poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.
Leonardo da Vinci
... I think this Law, by which I am punished, is both unreasonable in itself, and particularly severe... Polly Baker
Benjamin Franklin
How much more than necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave, as Poor Richard says.
Benjamin Franklin
Painting is concerned with all the 10 attributes of sight; which are: Darkness and Light, Solidity and Color, Form and Position, Distance and Propinquity, Motion and Rest.
Leonardo da Vinci
He who can have patience can have what he will.
Benjamin Franklin
Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.
Thomas Browne
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
Benjamin Franklin
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Benjamin Franklin
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
Benjamin Franklin
If you will not hear reason, she'll rap your knuckles.
Benjamin Franklin
Great beauty, great strength, and great riches are really and truly of no great use; a right heart exceeds all
Benjamin Franklin
He that drinks his cider alone, let him catch his horse alone.
Benjamin Franklin
I didn't fail the test. I just found 100 different ways to do it wrong.
Benjamin Franklin
I love those who can smile in trouble...
Leonardo da Vinci
After crosses and losses men grow humbler and wiser.
Benjamin Franklin
Imitate Jesus and Socrates
Benjamin Franklin
Be not sick too late, nor well too soon
Benjamin Franklin
This reasonable moderator, and equal piece of justice, Death.
Thomas Browne
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
Benjamin Franklin
Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
Benjamin Franklin
We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour, each day, making choices. We choose the thoughts we allow ourselves to think, the passions we allow ourselves to feel, and the actions we allow ourselves to perform. Each choice is made in the context of whatever value system we have selected to govern our lives. In selecting that value system, we are, in a very real way, making the most important choice we will ever make.Those who believe there is one God who made all things and who governs the world by this providence will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who hold in reverence that being who gave them life and worship Him through adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving will make choices different from those who do not. Those who believe that mankind are all of a family and that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who believe in a future state in which all that is wrong here will be made right will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who subscribe to the morals of Jesus will make many choices different from those who do not.Since the foundation of all happiness is thinking rightly, and since correct action is dependent on correct opinion, we cannot be too careful in choosing the value system we allow to govern our thoughts and actions.And to know that God governs in the affairs of men, that He hears and answers prayers, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, is, indeed, a powerful regulator of human conduct.
Benjamin Franklin
I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Benjamin Franklin
A perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.
Benjamin Franklin
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
Leonardo da Vinci
Fools make feasts and wise men eat them.
Benjamin Franklin
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.
Benjamin Franklin
A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
Benjamin Franklin
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.
Benjamin Franklin
Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don't have brains enough to be honest.
Benjamin Franklin
We all labor against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases
Thomas Browne
Vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful.
Benjamin Franklin
He who thinks little errs much…
Leonardo da Vinci
To me it seems that those sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, first-hand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has passed through one of the five senses. And if we doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to these senses – ribelli ad essi sensi – such as the existence of God or of the soul or similar things over which there is always dispute and contention. And in fact it happens that whenever reason is wanting men to cry out against one another, which does not happen with certainties. For this reason we shall say that where the cry of controversy is heard, there is no true science, because the truth has one single end and when this is published, argument is destroyed for ever.
Leonardo da Vinci
Never confuse Motion with Action.
Benjamin Franklin
Not to punish evil is equivalent to authorizing it.
Leonardo da Vinci
If the painter has clumsy hands, he will be apt to introduce them into his works, and so of any other part of his person, which may not happen to be so beautiful as it ought to be. He must, therefore, guard particularly against that self-love, or too good opinion of his own person, and study by every means to acquire the knowledge of what is most beautiful, and of his own defects, that he may adopt the one and avoid the other.
Leonardo da Vinci
...as I am not fond of giving advice,having seldom seen it taken
Benjamin Franklin