Nature varies the seed according to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the world.

Motion is created by the destruction of balance.

Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.

The first object of the painter is to make a flat plane appear as a body in relief and projecting from that plane

The human being, creature of eyes, needs the image.

Study me, reader, if you delight in me, because on very few occasions shall I return to the world, and because the patience for this profession is found in very few, and only in those who wish to compose things anew. Come, oh men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose to nature.

O time, swift robber of all created things, how many kings, how many nations hast thou undone, and how many changes of states and of various events have happened since the wondrous forms of this fish perished here in this cavernous and winding recess. Now destroyed by time thou liest patiently in this confined space with bones stripped and bare; serving as a support and prop for the superimposed mountain.