Small rooms or dwellings set the mind in the right path, large ones cause it to go astray.

If you put on more garments, the cold cannot reach you. Similarly, increase your patience and concentration and even great injuries cannot vex your mind.

Why are the bones of great fishes, and oysters and corals and various other shells and sea-snails, found on the high tops of mountains that border the sea, in the same way in which they are found in the depths of the sea?

There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment.

Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings a blessed death.

Every obstacle is destroyed through rigor.

One painter ought never to imitate the manner of any other; because in that case he cannot be called the child of nature, but the grandchild. It is always best to have recourse to nature, which is replete with such abundance of objects, than to the productions of other masters, who learnt everything from her.