If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.
There is an angel imprisoned in it and I must set it free.
Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.
In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.
However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man.