All the elements will be seen mixed together in a great whirling mass, now borne towards the centre of the world, now towards the sky; and now furiously rushing from the South towards the frozen North, and sometimes from the East towards the West, and then again from this hemisphere to the other.
One shall be born from small beginnings which will rapidly become vast. This will respect no created thing, rather will it, by its power, transform almost every thing from its own nature into another.
Oh! how foul a thing, that we should see the tongue of one animal in the guts of another.
Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in proportion as it is diminished.
If anyone wishes to see how the soul dwells in its body, let him observe how this body uses its daily habitation; that is to say, if this is devoid of order and confused, the body will be kept in disorder and confusion by its soul...
Poetry is superior to painting in the presentation of words, and painting is superior to poetry in the presentation of facts. For this reason I judge painting to be superior to poetry.
He only moves toward the perfection of his art whose criticism surpasses his achievement.
O mighty and once living instrument of formative nature. Incapable of availing thyself of thy vast strength thou hast to abandon a life of stillness and to obey the law which God and time gave to procreative nature.
The instant the atmosphere is illuminated it will be filled with an infinite number of images which are produced by the various bodies and colours assembled in it. And the eye is the target, a lodestone, of these images.
Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.
Every part is disposed to unite with the whole, that it may thereby escape from its own incompleteness.
He who wishes to see how the soul inhabits the body should look to see how that body uses its daily surroundings. If the dwelling is dirty and neglected, the body will be kept by its soul in the same condition, dirty and neglected.
First study the science, and then practice the art which is born of that science.
Strive to preserve your health; and in this you will better succeed in proportion as you keep clear of the physicians, for their drugs are a kind of alchemy concerning which there are no fewer books than there are medicines.
If you do not rest on the good foundation of nature, you will labour with little honor and less profit.
There is no higher or lower knowledge, but one only, flowing out of experimentation.
We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God.
Study me, reader, if you delight in me, because on very few occasions shall I return to the world, and because the patience for this profession is found in very few, and only in those who wish to compose things anew. Come, oh men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose to nature.
He who despises painting has no love for the philosophy in nature.
Sculptured figures which appear in motion, will, in their standing position, actually look as if they were falling forward.