After four tortured years, more than 400 over life-sized figures, I felt as old and as weary as Jeremiah. I was only 37, yet friends did not recognize the old man I had become.

It is necessary to keep one's compass in one's eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges.

So now, from this mad passion Which made me take art for an idol and a king I have learnt the burden of error that it bore And what misfortune springs from man's desire... The world's frivolities have robbed me of the time That I was given for reflecting upon God.

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

Genius is infinite painstaking.

Love is a beautiful image Imagined or seen within the heart, The friend of virtue and gentility.

Why do You Send Fools To judge My Work?