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

Strive to preserve your health; and in this you will better succeed in proportion as you keep clear of the physicians, for their drugs are a kind of alchemy concerning which there are no fewer books than there are medicines.

Make your faces so that they do not all have the same expression, as one sees with most painters, but give them different expression, according to age, complexion, and good or bad character.

A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.

In fact, whatever exists in the universe, in essence, in appearance, in the imagination, the painter has first in his mind and then in his hands ... it lies in his power to create them . . .

Especially learn how to see.

Lying on a feather mattress or quilt will not bring you renown.