The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.

In whatever system where the weight attached to the wheel should be the cause of motion of the wheel, without any doubt the center of the gravity of the weight will stop beneath the center of its axle. No instrument devised by human ingenuity, which turns with its wheel, can remedy this effect. Oh, speculators about perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have you created in the like quest. Go and take you place with the seekers after gold.

The painter who draws by practise and judgment of the eye without the use of reason is like the mirror which reproduces within itself all the objects which are set opposite to it without knowledge of the same.

Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.

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

Patience serves us against insults precisely as clothes do against the cold. For if you multiply your garments as the cold increases, that cold cannot hurt you; in the same way increase your patience under great offenses, and they cannot hurt your feelings.

If you find from your own experience that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written down, then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings.