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

Genius is infinite painstaking.

For those who feel it, nothing makes the soul so religious and pure as the endeavor to create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives after it, is striving after something divine. True painting is only the image of the perfection of God, a shadow of the pencil with which he paints, a melody, a striving after harmony.

The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor's hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone.

The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.

I give my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin, charging them to remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ.

If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.