Vitruvius

-79–-14 · Roman architect and engineer

Topics: learning, creativity, software design, life

• Propriety is that perfection of style which comes when a work is authoritatively constructed on approved principles. It arises from prescription, from usage, or from nature.

  — Vitruvius

• A liberal education forms... a single body. Those, therefore, who from tender years receive instruction in the various forms of learning, recognize the same stamp on all the arts, and an intercourse between all studies, and so they more readily comprehend them all.

  — Vitruvius

• All the gifts which fortune bestows she can easily take away; but education, when combined with intelligence, never fails, but abides steadily on to the very end of life.

  — Vitruvius

• There is nothing to which an architect should devote more thought than to the exact proportions of his building with reference to a certain part selected as the standard.

  — Vitruvius

• In the midst of all this great variety of subjects, an individual cannot attain to perfection in each, because it is scarcely in his power to take in and comprehend the general theories of them.

  — Vitruvius

• It is no secret that the moon has no light of her own, but is, as it were, a mirror, receiving brightness from the influence of the sun.

  — Vitruvius

• There are three departments of architecture: the art of building, the making of time-pieces, and the construction of machinery.

  — Vitruvius

• Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry, Propriety, and Economy.

  — Vitruvius

• In all matters but particularly in architecture ...that which is signified is the subject of which we may be speaking and that which gives significance is a demonstration on scientific principles. ...One who professes himself an architect should be well versed in both directions.

  — Vitruvius

• Eurythmy is beauty and fitness in the adjustments of the members. This is found when the members of a work are of a height suited to their breadth, of a breadth suited to their length, and, in a word, when they all correspond symmetrically.

  — Vitruvius

• Neque enim ingenium sine disciplina aut disciplina sine ingenio perfectum artificem potest efficere.

  — Vitruvius

• Pytheos made a mistake by not observing that the arts are each composed of two things, the actual work and the theory of it. One of these, the doing of the work, is proper to men trained in the individual subject, while the other the theory is common to all scholars.

  — Vitruvius

• 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 done by the other arts is put to test. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory.

  — Vitruvius

• If our designs for private houses are to be correct, we must at the outset take note of the countries and climates in which they are built.

  — Vitruvius

• Reflexion is careful and laborious thought, and watchful attention directed to the agreeable effect of one's plan. Invention, on the other hand, is the solving of intricate problems and the discovery of new principles by means of brilliancy and versatility.

  — Vitruvius

• One who in accordance with these notes will take pains in selecting his method of construction, may count upon having something that will last.

  — Vitruvius

• 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.

  — Vitruvius