The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.

I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.

Let whoever may have attained to so much as to have the power of drawing know that he holds a great treasure.

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

You must know that I am, of all men who were ever born, the most inclined to love persons. Whenever I behold someone who possesses any talent or displays any dexterity of mind, who can do or say something more appropriately than the rest of the world, I am compelled to fall in love with him; and then I give myself up to him so entirely that I am no longer my own property, but wholly his.

Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.

It is necessary to keep one's compass in one's eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges.