My father suffered much and toiled painfully all his life, for he had no resources other than the proceeds of his trade from which to support himself and his wife and family.

Nature holds the beautiful, for the artist who has the insight to extract it. Thus, beauty lies even in humble, perhaps ugly things, and the ideal, which bypasses or improves on nature, may not be truly beautiful in the end.

But I shall let the little I have learnt go forth into the day in order that someone better than I may guess the truth, and in his work may prove and rebuke my error. At this I shall rejoice that I was yet a means whereby this truth has come to light.

Why has God given me such magnificent talent? It is a curse as well as a great blessing.

Geometry is the foundation of all painting.

What beauty is, I know not, though it adheres to many things.

Sane judgment abhors nothing so much as a picture perpetrated with no technical knowledge, although with plenty of care and diligence.

There is no man on earth who can give a final judgment on what the most beautiful shape may be. Only God knows.

Art is embedded in nature and they who can extract it, have it.

Love and delight are better teachers than compulsion.

An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great power and art in small things roughly and rudely done, than many another in a great work. A man may often draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day ... and it shall be fuller of art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole year's careful labor.

The artist is chosen by God to fulfill his commands and must never be overwhelmed by public opinion.

Help us to recognize your voice, help us not to be allured by the madness of the world, so that we may never fall away from you, O Lord Jesus Christ.

I hold that the perfection of form and beauty is contained in the sum of all men.

No single man can be taken as a model for a perfect figure, for no man lives on earth who is endowed with the whole of beauty.

Sight is the noblest sense of man.

As I grew older, I realized that it was much better to insist on the genuine forms of nature, for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.

If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided that happens otherwise if one is idle.

And since geometry is the right foundation of all painting, I have decided to teach its rudiments and principles to all youngsters eager for art.