Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

Nor is mine a trumpet which summons and excites men to cut each other to pieces with mutual contradictions, or to quarrel and fight with one another; but rather to make peace between themselves, and turning with united forces against the Nature of Things

There ought to be gardens for all months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season.

In all superstition wise men follow fools.

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

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware, that they carry their anger rather with scorn, than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury, than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.

But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.