Leon Battista Alberti

When I investigate and when I discover that the forces of the heavens and the planets are within ourselves, then truly I seem to be living among the gods.

The picture will have charm when each color is very unlike the one next to it.

Men can do all things if they will.

The city is like a great house, and the house in its turn a small city.

We must always take from nature what we paint and always choose the most beautiful things.

Beauty: the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.

I will never tire of recommending the custom, practiced by the best architects, of preparing not only drawings and sketches, but also models of wood or any other material. These... enable us to examine... the work as a whole... and, before continuing any further, to estimate the likely trouble and expense.

Painting contains a divine force which... makes the dead seem almost alive.

A man can do all things if he but wills them.

Beauty is the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.