A man was desired to rise from bed because the sun was already up. He replied: “If I had as far to go and as much to do as he has, I should be up by now; but having but a little way to go, I shall not get up yet.”
A good memory, which nature has endowed us with, causes things long past to seem present.
Every man at three years old is half his height.
Make your faces so that they do not all have the same expression, as one sees with most painters, but give them different expression, according to age, complexion, and good or bad character.
Lying on a feather mattress or quilt will not bring you renown.
Some promises and time disappoint us.
Being engulfed in practice without delicate knowledge related to it, is in many ways like entering a ship without knowing where it is headed.
I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.
Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth.
Fame alone raises herself to Heaven, because virtuous things are in favour with God.
Every action needs to be prompted by a motive. To know and to will are two operations of the human mind. Discerning, judging, deliberating are acts of the human mind.
O speculators about perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have you created in the like quest? Go and take your place with the seekers after gold.
We may call painting the grandchild of nature.
Old age takes in part savoury wisdom for its food – see to that your old age will not lack in nourishment.
O Time with your teethy years! You swallow up all things little by little in a slow-motion, wrinkling process of dying.
If we make mistakes in our first compositions and do not know them, we may not amend them.
If you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. Let us hope that.
A deaf and dumb person who sees two men in conversation – may nevertheless understand from the attitudes and gestures of the speakers, how well their discussion is getting along.
To speak ill of a good person is not truly good, all in all.
To lie is vile, to tell truth is excellent, if not noble.