Vitruvius Quotes

“Vitruvius discovered that the length of a man’s ear is one-third of the length of his face, and the length of a man’s foot is one-sixth of his height. As a child, I was asked to measure the distance from the tip of my head to the floor and divide it by the distance from my belly button to the ground. The number I came up with is the same number that nearly everyone will. A ratio of 1.618.”
― Michelle Moran, Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

“The strengths landscape architecture draws from its garden design heritage include: the Vitruvian design tradition of balancing utility, firmness and beauty; use of the word 'landscape' to mean 'a good place' - as the objective of the design process; a comprehensive approach to open space planning involving city parks, greenways and nature outside towns; a planning theory about the contextualisation of development projects; the principle that development plans should be adapted to their landscape context.”
― Tom Turner, Garden History: Philosophy and Design 2000 BC – 2000 AD

“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.”
― Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture

“This was how Dinocrates, recommended only by his good looks and dignified carriage, came to be so famous. But as for me, Emperor, nature has not given me stature, age has marred my face, and my strength is impaired by ill health.”
― Vitruvius Pollio, The Ten Books on Architecture