Mathematics, such as appertain to painting, are necessary to the painter, also the absence of companions who are alien to his studies: his brain must be versatile and susceptible to the variety of objects which it encounters, and free from distracting cares.

First there must be order and harmony within your own mind. Then this order will spread to your family, then to the community, and finally to your entire kingdom. Only then can you have peace and harmony.

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

An artist's studio should be a small space because small rooms discipline the mind and large ones distract it.

Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man.

The mind passes in an instant from east to west; and all the great incorporeal things resemble these very closely in speed.