I know that many will call this useless work. - Leonardo da Vinci

If you wish to make a figure in marble, first make one of clay, and when you have finished it, let it dry and place it in a case which should be large enough, after the figure is taken out of it, to receive also the marble, from which you intend to reveal the figure in imitation of the one in clay.

sooner will there exist a body without a shadow than virtue unaccompanied by envy.

Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue.