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.

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

Old age takes in part savoury wisdom for its food - see to that your old age will not lack in nourishment.

He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

Make your faces so that they do not all have the same expression, as one sees with most painters, but give them different expression, according to age, complexion, and good or bad character.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.