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

If you do not rest on the good foundation of nature, you will labour with little honor and less profit.

But to me all sciences seem vain and full of error that are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, and do not terminate in an actual experience.

If we make mistakes in our first compositions and do not know them, we may not amend them.

I say that in narrative paintings one should mingle direct contraries close by, because they produce strong contrasts with one another, and all the more so when they are very close together; that is, the ugly next to the beautiful, the big to the small, the old to the young, the strong to the weak; in this way you will vary as much as possible and close by.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

The faculty of imagination is both the rudder and the bridle of the senses.