Vitruvius Quotes

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There are... many... names for winds derived from localities or from the squalls which sweep from rivers or down mountains.

Vitruvius
Travertine and all stone of that class can stand injury whether from a heavy load laid upon it or from the weather; exposure to fire, however, it cannot bear, but splits and cracks to pieces at once. This is because in its natural composition there is but little moisture and not much of the earthy, but a great deal of air and of fire. Therefore, it is not only without the earthy and watery elements, but when fire, expelling the air from it by the operation and force of heat, penetrates into its inmost parts and occupies the empty spaces of the fissures there comes a great glow and the stone is made to burn as fiercely as do the particles of fire itself.

Vitruvius
Our ancestors, when about to build a town or an army post, sacrificed some of the cattle that were wont to feed on the site proposed and examined their livers. If the livers of the first victims were dark-coloured or abnormal, they sacrificed others, to see whether the fault was due to disease or their food. They never began to build defensive works in a place until after they had made many such trials and satisfied themselves that good water and food had made the liver sound and firm.... healthfulness being their chief object.

Vitruvius
In the same manner the voice executes its movements in concentric circles; but while in the case of water the circles move horizontally on a plane surface, the voice not only proceeds horizontally, but also ascends vertically by regular stages. Therefore, as in the case of the waves formed in the water, so it is in the case of the voice: the first wave, when there is no obstruction to interrupt it, does not break up the second or the following waves, but they all reach the ears of the lowest and highest spectators without an echo.

Vitruvius
Taking courage and looking forward from the standpoint of higher ideas born of the multiplication of the arts, they gave up huts and began to build houses with foundations, having brick or stone walls, and roofs of timber and tiles; next, observation and application led them from fluctuating and indefinite conceptions to definite rules of symmetry. Perceiving that nature had been lavish in the bestowal of timber and bountiful in stores of building material, they... embellished them with luxuries.

Vitruvius
Owing to this favor I need to have no fear of want to the end of my life, and being thus laid under obligation I began to write this work for you, because I saw that you have built and are now building extensively, and that in future also you will take care that our public and private buildings shall be worthy to go down to posterity by the side of your other splendid achievements.

Vitruvius
From astronomy we find the east, west, south, and north, as well as the theory of the heavens, the equinox, solstice, and courses of the stars. If one has no knowledge of these matters, he will not be able to have any comprehension of the theory of sundials.

Vitruvius
And so, as they kept coming together in greater numbers into one place, finding themselves naturally gifted beyond the other animals in not being obliged to walk with faces to the ground, but upright and gazing upon the splendor of the starry firmament, and also in being able to do with ease whatever they chose with their hands and fingers, they began in that first assembly to construct shelters. Some made them of green boughs, others dug caves on mountain sides, and some, in imitation of the nests of swallows and the way they built, made places of refuge out of mud and twigs. Next, by observing the shelters of others and adding new details to their own inceptions they constructed better and better kinds of huts as time went on.

Vitruvius
Then again, in the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom.

Vitruvius
For the eye is always in search of beauty, and if we do not gratify its desire for pleasure by a proportionate enlargement in these measures, and thus make compensation for ocular deception, a clumsy and awkward appearance will be presented to the beholder.

Vitruvius
Leave a cavity behind the [wall] facings, and on the inside build walls two feet thick, made of red dimension stone or burnt brick or lava in courses, and then bind them to the fronts by means of iron clamps and lead.... the beds and builds, all settling equally and bonded at the joints, will not let the work bulge out, nor allow the fall of the face walls which have been tightly fastened together.

Vitruvius
Hence, men that are born in the north are rendered over-timid and weak by fever, but their wealth of blood enables them to stand up against the sword without timidity.

Vitruvius
In Sparta, paintings have been taken out of certain walls by cutting through the bricks, then have been placed in wooden frames, and so brought to the Comitium to adorn the aedileship of [C. Visellius] Varro and [C. Licinius] Murena.

Vitruvius
Nothing suffers annihilation, but at dissolution there is a change, and things fall back to the essential element in which they were before.

Vitruvius
There will be no propriety in the spectacle of an elegant interior approached by a low mean entrance.

Vitruvius
Marshes that are stagnant and have no outlets either by rivers or ditches, like the Pomptine marshes, merely putrefy as they stand, emitting heavy, unhealthy vapors. A case of a town built in such a spot was Old Salpia in Apulia... Year after year there was sickness, until finally the suffering inhabitants came with a public petition to Marcus Hostilius and got him to agree to seek and find them a proper place to which to remove their city.

Vitruvius
The gravity of a substance depends not on the amount of its weight, but on its nature.

Vitruvius
The elm and the ash... when put in shape for use in buildings... are tough and having no stiffness... soon bend. But when they become dry with age, or are allowed to lose their sap... they get harder, and from their toughness supply a strong material for dowels to be used in joints and other articulations.

Vitruvius
Some people do indeed say that Eratosthenes could not have inferred the true measure of the earth. Whether true or untrue, it cannot affect the truth of what I have written on the fixing of the quarters from which the different winds blow.

Vitruvius
At Jaffa in Syria and among the Nomads in Arabia, are lakes of enormous size that yield very large masses of asphalt, which are carried off by the inhabitants thereabouts.

Vitruvius
In Spring all trees become pregnant, and they are all employing their natural vigor in the production of leaves and of the fruits that return every year. The requirements of that season render them empty and swollen, and so they are weak and feeble because of their looseness of texture. This is also the case with women who have conceived. Their bodies are not considered perfectly healthy until the child is born.

Vitruvius
When the juices of trees have no means of escape, they clot and rot in them, making the trees hollow and good for nothing.

Vitruvius
When his companions wished to return to their country, and asked him what message he wished them to carry home, he bade them say this: that children ought to be provided with property and resources of a kind that could swim with them even out of a shipwreck.

Vitruvius
Ceres also should be outside the city in a place to which people need never go except for the purpose of sacrifice.

Vitruvius
Therefore it was the discovery of fire that originally gave rise to the coming together of men, to the deliberate assembly, and to social intercourse.

Vitruvius
The architect should also have a knowledge of the study of medicine on account of the questions of climates, air, the healthiness and unhealthiness of sites, and the use of different waters. For without these considerations the healthiness of a dwelling cannot be assured.

Vitruvius
When it appears that a work has been carried out sumptuously, the owner will be the person to be praised for the great outlay which ha has authorized; when delicately, the master workmen will be approved for his execution; but when proportions and symmetry lend it an imposing effect, then the glory of it will belong to the architect.

Vitruvius
While all bodies are composed of the four elements, that is, of heat, moisture, the earthy, and air, yet there are mixtures according to natural temperament which make up the natures of all the different animals of the world, each after its kind.

Vitruvius
Economy denotes the the proper management of materials and of site, as well as a thrifty balancing of cost and common sense in the construction of works.... the architect does not demand things which cannot be found or made ready without great expense. For example: it is not everywhere that there is plenty of pitsand, rubble, fir, clear fir, and marble... Where there is no pitsand, we must use the kinds washed up by rivers or by the sea... and other problems we must solve in similar ways.

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

Vitruvius