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.
MichelangeloLove is a beautiful image Imagined or seen within the heart, The friend of virtue and gentility.
MichelangeloIf 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.
MichelangeloArt is the gift of God, and must be used unto His glory. That in art is highest which aims at this.
MichelangeloYou must know that I am, of all men who were ever born, the most inclined to love persons. Whenever I behold someone who possesses any talent or displays any dexterity of mind, who can do or say something more appropriately than the rest of the world, I am compelled to fall in love with him; and then I give myself up to him so entirely that I am no longer my own property, but wholly his.
Michelangelo