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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

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Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
Difficult
Greek
Science
Harmony
Many
Musical
None
Necessary
Acquainted
Words
Corresponding
Language
Obscure
Use
Latin

More quotes by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

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The stone in quarries is found to be of different and unlike qualities. In some it is soft, in others it is medium, in still others it is hard as in lava quarries. There are also numerous other kinds: for instance, in Campania, red and black tufas in Umbria, Picenum, and Venetia, white tufa which can be cut with a toothed saw like wood.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
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In order that the mortar in the joints may not suffer from frosts, drench it with oil-dregs every year before winter begins. Thus treated, it will not let the hoarfrost enter it.
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Cold winds are disagreeable, hot winds enervating, moist winds unhealthy.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
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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
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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
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There are two styles of walls opus reticulatum, now used by everybody and the ancient style called opus incertum. Of these, the reticulatum looks better, but its construction makes it likely to crack. On the other hand, in the opus incertum, the rubble lying in courses and imbricated, makes a wall which though not beautiful, is stronger.
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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
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The proper form of economy must be observed in building houses for each and every class.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
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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
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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
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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
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Some have held that there are only four winds: Solanus from the east Auster from the south Favonius from due west Septentrio from the north. But more careful investigators tell us that there are eight.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
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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.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
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Philosophy treats of physics where a more careful knowledge is required because the problems which come under this head are numerous... So the reader of Ctesibius or Archimedes and the other writers of treatises of the same class will not be able to appreciate them unless he has been trained in these subjects by the philosophers.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
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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
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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.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
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Now architecture consists of order, which in Greek is called taxis ... Order is the balanced adjustment of the details of the work separately, and, as to the whole, the arrangement of the proportion with a view to a symmetrical result.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
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For not all things are practicable on identical principles
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
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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.
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There are also half bricks. As the bricks are always laid so as to break joints, this lends strength and a not unattractive appearance to both sides of such walls.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio