A good memory, which nature has endowed us with, causes things long past to seem present.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive. To know and to will are two operations of the human mind. Discerning, judging, deliberating are acts of the human mind.

Nature alone is the master of true genius.

Study me, reader, if you delight in me, because on very few occasions shall I return to the world, and because the patience for this profession is found in very few, and only in those who wish to compose things anew. Come, oh men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose to nature.

Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labor.

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it.