I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

True and great love springs out of great knowledge, and where you know little you can love but little or not at all.

A life well used procures a happy death.

Tears come from the heart and not from the brain

I think it is no small attraction in a painter to be able to give a pleasing air to his figures, and whoever is not naturally possessed of this grace may acquire it by study, as opportunity offers in the following manner: be on the watch to take good parts of many beautiful faces of which the beautiful parts are established by general repute rather than by your own judgement, for you may deceive yourself by selecting faces that resemble your own, since it often seems that such similarities please us; ... so therefore choose the beautiful ones as I tell you and fix them in your mind.

Here is a thing which the more it is needed the more it is rejected: and this is advice, which is unwillingly heeded by those who most need it, that is to say, by the ignorant.

For those colours which you wish to be beautiful, always first prepare a pure white ground.