You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.
Each man is always in the middle of the surface of the earth and under the zenith of his own hemisphere, and over the centre of the earth.
The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.
There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.
The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.
The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of colour at long distances.
Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.
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.
There are four Powers: memory and intellect, desire and covetousness. The two first are mental and the others sensual. The three senses: sight, hearing and smell cannot well be prevented; touch and taste not at all.
It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail against my lips.
Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law.
While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
The spirit desires to remain with its body, because, without the organic instruments of that body, it can neither act, nor feel anything.
I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.
The Medici created and destroyed me.
Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.
Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work... men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.
How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever-lasting.
Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.
