The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me.

Make yourself a master of perspective, then acquire perfect knowledge of the proportions of men and other animals.

Those who condemn the supreme certainty of mathematics feed on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of the sophistical sciences which lead to eternal quackery.

Of the four elements water is the second in weight and the second in respect of mobility. It is never at rest until it unites with the sea.

A bird maintains itself in the air by imperceptible balancing, when near to the mountains or lofty ocean crags; it does this by means of the curves of the winds which as they strike against these projections, being forced to preserve their first impetus bend their straight course towards the sky with divers revolutions, at the beginning of which the birds come to a stop with their wings open, receiving underneath themselves the continual buffetings of the reflex courses of the winds.

Given the cause nature produces the effect in the briefest manner that it can employ.

There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.