Quotes to inspire and reflect

He only moves toward the perfection of his art whose criticism surpasses his achievement.

Lying on a feather mattress or quilt will not bring you renown.

If we make mistakes in our first compositions and do not know them, we may not amend them.

I am not poor. Poor are those who desire many things.

Truth was always but the daughter of time.

The vine that has grown old on an old tree falls with the ruin of that tree, and through that bad companionship must perish with it.

O admirable necessity! O powerful action! What mind can penetrate your nature? What language can express this marvel? None, to be sure. This is where human discourse turns toward the contemplation of the divine.

The light and heat of the universe comes from the sun, and its cold and darkness from the withdrawal of the sun.

The evil which does me no harm is like the good which in no wise avails me.

Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light.

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

When counting, try not to mix chickens with blessings.

Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.

Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.

I have found that, in the composition of the human body as compared with the bodies of animals, the organs of sense are duller and coarser. Thus, it is composed of less ingenious instruments, and of spaces less capacious for receiving the faculties of sense.

A painter was asked why, since he made such beautiful figures, which were but dead things, his children were so ugly; to which the painter replied that he made his pictures by day, and his children by night.

The imagination is to the effect as the shadow to the opaque body which causes the shadow.

Things severed shall be united and shall acquire of themselves such virtue that they shall restore to men their lost memory: That is the papyrus sheets, which are formed out of several strips and preserve the memory of the thoughts and deeds of men.

Slender certainty is better than portentous falsehood.

A natural action is accomplished in the briefest manner.

Men standing in opposite hemispheres will converse and deride each other and embrace each other, and understand each other’s language.

People of higher talent work, even if they seem to do nothing.

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 82 body will be kept by its soul in the same condition, dirty and neglected.

The painter or draftsman ought to be solitary, in order that the well-being of the body not sap the vigor of the mind.

In the days of thy youth seek to obtain that which shall compensate the losses of thy old age.

Many will think they may reasonably blame me by alleging that my proofs are opposed to the authority of certain men held in the highest reverence by their inexperienced judgments; not considering that my works are the issue of pure and simple experience.

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.

O painter, take care lest the greed for gain prove a stronger incentive than renown in art, for to gain this renown is a 80 far greater thing than is the renown of riches.

True and great love springs out of great knowledge, and where you know little you can love but little or not at all.

Why are the bones of great fishes, and oysters and corals and various other shells and sea-snails, found on the high tops of mountains that border the sea, in the same way in which they are found in the depths of the sea?

O painter skilled in anatomy, beware lest the undue prominence of the bones, sinews and muscles cause you to become a wooden painter from the desire to make your nude figures reveal all.

Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love.

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.

Nothing will be left, Nothing in the air, nothing under the earth, nothing in the waters. All will be exterminated.

Happy will be those who give ear to the words of the dead: The reading of good works and the observing of their precepts.

Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.

Fire destroys falsehood, that is sophistry, and restores truth, driving out darkness.

It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.

A poet knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

The organ of perception acts more readily than judgment.

I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.

Even the richest soil, if left uncultivated will produce the rankest weeds.

Inaction saps the vigor of the mind.

You should prefer a good scientist without literary abilities than a literate one without scientific skills.

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.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

You grow in reputation like bread in the hands of a child.

The mole has very small eyes and it always lives under ground; and it lives as long as it is in the dark but when it comes into the light it dies immediately, because it becomes known; and so it is with lies.