Leon Battista Alberti Quotes

A common error of ignorance is to maintain that what one does not know does not exist.

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

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

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.

I certainly consider a great appreciation of painting to be the best indication of a most perfect mind ...

Philosophers say that nothing can be seen that is neither illuminated nor colored.

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

Nothing overshadows truth so much as authority.

As ability goes, so goes our fortune.

There is no art which has not had its beginnings in things full of errors. Nothing is at the same time both new and perfect.

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.

Men are themselves the source of their own fortune and misfortune.

Painting is possessed of divine power, for not only does it make the absent present, but also makes the dead almost alive.

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

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

I prefer you to take as your model a mediocre sculpture rather than an excellent painting, for from painted objects we train our hand only to make a likeness, whereas from sculptures we learn to represent both likeness and correct incidence of light.

A man can do all things if he will.