Top 60 Marcus Vitruvius Pollio Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The architect must not only understand drawing, but music.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

2. “Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry, Propriety, and Economy.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

3. “Commodity, firmness, delight...”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

4. “Architect’s designs must refer to the unquestionable perfection of the body’s symmetry and proportions. If a building is to create a sense of eurythmia, it is essential that it mirrors these natural laws of harmony and beauty.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

5. “Architecture is a science arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning; by the help of which a judgment is formed of those works which are the result of other arts.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

6. “Architects should be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

7. “As for philosophy, it makes an architect high-minded and not self-assuming, but rather renders him courteous, just, and honest without avariciousness. This is very important, for no work can be rightly done without honesty and incorruptibility.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

8. “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.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

9. “A harmonious design requires that nothing be added or taken away.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

10. “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.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

11. “I, therefore, O Caesar, do not publish this work, merely prefixing my name to a treatise which of right belongs to others, nor think of acquiring reputation by finding fault with the works of any one.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

12. “Proportion is that agreeable harmony between the several parts of a building, which is the result of a just and regular agreement of them with each other; the height to the width, this to the length, and each of these to the whole.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

13. “Nothing requires the architect’s care more than the due proportions of buildings.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

14. “An architect ought to be an educated man so as to leave a more lasting remembrance in his treatises.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

15. “Cold winds are disagreeable, hot winds enervating, moist winds unhealthy.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

16. “Consistency is found in that work whose whole and detail are suitable to the occasion. It arises from circumstance, custom, and nature.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

17. “The design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most carefully observed by the architect.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

18. “In setting out the walls of a city the choice of a healthy situation is of the first importance: it should be on high ground, neither subject to fogs nor rains; its aspects should be neither violently hot nor intensely cold, but temperate in both respects.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

19. “The third order, called Corinthian, is an imitation of the slenderness of a maiden; for the outlines and limbs of maidens, being more slender on account of their tender years, admit of prettier effects in the way of adornment.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

20. “Next I must tell about the machine of Ctesibius, which raises water to a height.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

21. “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.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

22. “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.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

23. “Altars should face the east, and should always be placed on a lower level than are the statues in the temples, so that those who are praying and sacrificing may look upwards towards the divinity.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

24. “All machinery is derived from nature, and is founded on the teaching and instruction of the revolution of the firmament.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

25. “With the ripening of the fruits in Autumn the leaves begin to wither and the trees, taking up their sap from the earth through the roots, recover themselves and are restored to their former solid texture. But the strong air of winter compresses and solidifies them.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

26. “The proper form of economy must be observed in building houses for each and every class.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

27. “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.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

28. “In fact, all kinds of men, and not merely architects, can recognize a good piece of work...”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

29. “If then, at this great distance, our human vision can discern that sight, why, pray, are we to think that the divine splendor of the stars can be cast into darkness?”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

30. “Of course, we need not be surprised if artistic excellence goes unrecognized on account of being unknown; but there should be the greatest indignation when, as often, good judges are flattered by the charm of social entertainments into an approbation which is a mere a pretence.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

31. “From food and water, then, we may learn whether sites are naturally unhealthy or healthy.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

32. “Wind is a floating wave of air, whose undulation continually varies.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

33. “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.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

34. “For siege works against bold and venturesome men should be constructed on one plan, on another against cautious men, and on still another against the cowardly.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

35. “From the exterior face of the wall towers must be projected, from which an approaching enemy may be annoyed by weapons, from the embrasures of those towers, right and left.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

36. “Some springs are acid, as at Lyncestus and in Italy in the Velian country, at Teano in Campania, and in many other places. These when used in drinks have the power of breaking up stones in the bladder, which form in the human body.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

37. “Harmony is an obscure and difficult musical science, but most difficult to those who are not acquainted with the Greek language; because it is necessary to use many Greek words to which there are none corresponding in Latin.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

38. “From prescription, in the case of hypaethral edifices, open to the sky, in honor of Jupiter Lightning, the Heaven, the Sun, or the Moon: for these are gods whose semblances and manifestations we behold before our very eyes in the sky when it is cloudless and bright.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

39. “Basilicas should be constructed on a site adjoining the forum and in the warmest possible quarter, so that in winter business men may gather in them without being troubled by the weather.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

40. “Heat is a universal solvent, melting out of things their power of resistance, and sucking away and removing their natural strength with its fiery exhalations so that they grow soft, and hence weak, under its glow.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

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

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

42. “For we must not build temples according to the same rules to all gods alike, since the performance of the sacred rites varies with the various gods.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

43. “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.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

44. “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.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

45. “When it passes towards the east, the sun begins to have less effect upon it, and a thin line on the edge of its bright side emits its splendour towards the earth.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

46. “There are also in some places springs which have the peculiarity of giving fine singing voices to the natives, as at Tarsus in Magnesia and in other countries of that kind.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

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

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

48. “The construction of temples of the Ionic order to Juno, Diana, Father Bacchus, and the other gods of that kind, will be in keeping with the middle position which they hold; for the building of such will be an appropriate combination of the severity of the Doric and the delicacy of the Corinthian .”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

49. “Burn shavings and splinters of pitch pine, and when they turn to charcoal, put them out, and pound them into mortar with size. This will make a pretty black for fresco painting.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

50. “In accordance with the foregoing investigations on mathematical principles, let bronze vessels be made, proportionate to the size of the theatre, and let them be so fashioned that, when touched, they may produce with one another the notes of the fourth, the fifth, and so on up the double octave.”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio