Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop.

An artist does his most difficult work when he steps back from the blank canvas and thinks about what he is going to create.

Heaven-born, the soul a heavenward course must hold; beyond the world she soars; the wise man, I affirm, can find no rest in that which perishes, nor will he lend his heart to ought that doth time depend

If I am more alive because love burns and chars me, as a fire, given wood or wind, feels new elation, it's that he who lays me low is my salvation, and invigorates the more, the more he scars me.

Trifles make perfection but perfection is not a trifle

He who does not master the nude cannot understand the principles of architecture.

Is it any wonder, since, when near the fire, I was melted and burned, if now that it's extinguished outside me, it besets and consumes me inside, and bit by bit reduces me to ashes?