How painting surpasses all human works by reason of the subtle possibilities which it contains.

Truth was always but the daughter of time.

I woke up only to find the rest of the world asleep.

There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment.

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.

The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.

The lover is moved by the thing loved, as the sense is by that which perceives, and it unites with it and they become one and the same thing... when the lover is united with the beloved it finds rest there; when the burden is laid down there it finds rest.