No art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it.

The greatest work of an artist is the history of a painting.

Painting contains a divine force which not only makes absent men present, as friendship is said to do, but moreover makes the dead seem almost alive.

The city is like a great house, and the house in its turn a small city.

Errors accumulate in the sketch and compound in the model.

The function of the painter is to render... the visible surface so that at a certain distance... and position it appears... like the body itself.

A person can do anything if they only will it strongly enough.