Quotes from Vitruvius

If nature has composed the human body so that in its proportions the seperate individual elements answer to the total form, then the Ancients seem to have had reason to decide that bringing their creations to full completion likewise required a correspondence bewteen the measure of individual elements and the appearance of the work as a whole.

I think that men have no right to profess themselves architects hastily, without having climbed from boyhood the steps of these studies and thus, nursed by the knowledge of many arts and sciences, having reached the heights of the holy ground of architecture.

Socrates […] is recorded as having said, sagely and with the greatest acuteness, that men's breasts should have windows in them and be open so that their thoughts would not remain concealed but open for inspection.

Nothing requires the architect's care more than the due proportions of buildings

Firmitas, utilitas, venustas.

The architect should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning, for it is by his judgement that all work be done by the other arts is put to test.

I think that men have no right to profess themselves architects hastily, without having climbed from the steps of these studies and thus, nursed by knowledge of many arts and sciences, having reached the heights of the holy ground of architecture.

architects who have aimed at acquiring manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a position of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied only upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the shadow, not the substance.

For all fields, and especially architecture, comprise two aspects: that which is signified and that which signifies it. [... ] Therefore it is evident that a man who wants to proclaim himself an architect must be proficient with regards to both aspects.

Beauty is produced by the pleasing appearance and good taste of the whole, and by the dimensions of all the parts being duly proportioned to each other.

Bodies which contain a greater proportion of water than is necessary to balance the other elements, are speedily corrupted, and lose their virtues and properties.