The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself.

When that which loves is united to the thing beloved it can rest there; when the burden is laid down it finds rest there. There will be eternal fame also for the inhabitants of that town, constructed and enlarged by him.

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.

A day will come in which men will look upon an animal's murder the same way they look today upon a man's murder.

I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why shells existed on the tops of mountains. How the various circles of water form around the spot which has been struck by a stone, and why a bird sustains itself in the air.

The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me.

The eye - which sees all objects reversed - retains the images for some time.