When you look at a wall spotted with stains...you may discover a resemblance to various landscapes, beautiful with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees. Or again, you may see battles and figures in action, or strange faces and costumes, and an endless variety of objects which you could reduce to complete and well-drawn figures.

To lie is vile, to tell truth is excellent, if not noble.

Our life is made by the death of others.

Of several bodies, all equally large and equally distant, that which is most brightly illuminated will appear to the eye nearest and largest.

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.

When you draw a nude, sketch the whole figure and nicely fit the members to it and to each other. Even though you may only finish one portion of the drawing, just make certain that all the parts hang together, so that the study will be useful to you in the future.