The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself.

You should look at certain walls stained with damp, or at stones of uneven color. If you have to invent some backgrounds you will be able to see in these the likeness of divine landscapes, adorned with mountains, ruins, rocks, woods, great plains, hills and valleys in great variety; and expressions of faces and clothes and an infinity of things which you will be able to reduce to their complete and proper forms. In such walls the same thing happens as in the sound of bells, in whose stroke you may find every named word which you can imagine.

Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occassion of folly.

If you are on the side whence the wind is blowing you will see the trees looking much lighter than you would see them on the other sides; and this is due to the fact that the wind turns up the reverse side of the leaves which in all trees is much whiter than the upper side.

Perspective is the rein and rudder of painting.

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.

It is an acknowledged fact that we perceive errors in the work of others more readily than in our own.