Velazquez found the perfect balance between the ideal illustration which he was required to produce, and the overwhelming emotion he aroused in the spectator.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

I should have been, I don't know, a con-man, a robber or a prostitute. But it was vanity that made me choose painting, vanity and chance.

The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man.

Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.

But we are not dedicating or building any Capitol or Pyramid to human Pride, but found a holy temple in the human Intellect, on the model of the Universe... For whatever is worthy of Existence is worthy of Knowledge-which is the Image (or Echo) of Existence.

There was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God.