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

If people knew how hard I worked at my art, they would not consider me a genius.

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.

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

And who is so barbarous as not to understand that the foot of a man is nobler than his shoe, and his skin nobler than that of the sheep with which he is clothed.

Let whoever may have attained to so much as to have the power of drawing know that he holds a great treasure.

With few words I shall make thee understand my soul.