Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.

Vitality and beauty are gifts of Nature for those who live according to its laws.

How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever-lasting.

People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life.

I think it is no small attraction in a painter to be able to give a pleasing air to his figures, and whoever is not naturally possessed of this grace may acquire it by study, as opportunity offers in the following manner: be on the watch to take good parts of many beautiful faces of which the beautiful parts are established by general repute rather than by your own judgement, for you may deceive yourself by selecting faces that resemble your own, since it often seems that such similarities please us; ... so therefore choose the beautiful ones as I tell you and fix them in your mind.

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

If you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting.