Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth.

Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.

Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.

Nature never breaks her own laws.

Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.

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.