“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”

“Experience is never at fault; it is only your judgment that is in error, in promising itself such results from experience as are not caused by our experiments. For having given a beginning, what follows from it must necessarily be a natural development of such a beginning, unless it has been subject to a contrary influence, while, if it is affected by any contrary influence, the result which ought to follow from the aforesaid beginning, will be found to partake of this contrary influence in a greater or lesser degree in proportion as the said influence is more or less powerful than the aforesaid beginning.”

“While human ingenuity may devise various inventions to the same ends, it will never devise anything more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than nature does, because in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.”

“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”

“The organ of perception acts more readily than judgment.”

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.”