Never make heads straight on the shoulders, but turn them aside to the right or to the left, even though they look down, or upward, or straight ahead, because it is necessary for them to look lively and awake and not asleep. And do not depict the front or rear half of the whole person so that too much straightness is displaced, one half above or below the other half; and if you should wish to use stiff figures, do so only in portraying old people.

We may call painting the grandchild of nature.

The art of procreation and the members employed therein are so repulsive, that if it were not for the beauty of the faces and the adornments of the actors and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose the human species.

Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.

Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.

The body of the earth is of the nature of a fish... because it draws water as its breath instead of air.

Strive to preserve your health; and in this you will better succeed in proportion as you keep clear of the physicians, for their drugs are a kind of alchemy concerning which there are no fewer books than there are medicines.