It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

I say that the power of vision extends through the visual rays to the surface of non-transparent bodies, while the power possessed by these bodies extends to the power of vision.

You grow in reputation like bread in the hands of a child.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

The first of all simple colours is White ... We shall set down White for the representative of light, without which no colour can be seen; Yellow for the earth; Green for water; Blue for air; Red for fire; and Black for total darkness.

The memory of benefits is a frail defence against ingratitude.

O Time with your teethy years! You swallow up all things little by little in a slow-motion, wrinkling process of dying.