Now do you not see that the eye embraces the beauty of the whole world? It counsels and corrects all the arts of mankind... it is the prince of mathematics, and the sciences founded on it are absolutely certain. It has measured the distances and sizes of the stars it has discovered the elements and their location... it has given birth to architecture and to perspective and to the divine art of painting.

Being engulfed in practice without delicate knowledge related to it, is in many ways like entering a ship without knowing where it is headed.

Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love.

I'm not contented to capture the world. I want to change it.

One painter ought never to imitate the manner of any other; because in that case he cannot be called the child of nature, but the grandchild. It is always best to have recourse to nature, which is replete with such abundance of objects, than to the productions of other masters, who learnt everything from her.

Every action done by nature is done in the shortest way.

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.