Michelangelo Quotes

Lord, make me see thy glory in every place.

Even if you are divine, you don't disdain male consorts.

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.

As when, O lady mine, With chiselled touch, The stone unhewn and cold, Becomes a living mould, The more the marble wastes, The more the statue grows.

Perfection is no small thing, but it is made up of small things.

Art is the gift of God, and must be used unto His glory. That in art is highest which aims at this.

The art of creation lies in the gift of perceiving the particular and generalizing it, thus creating the particular again. It is therefore a powerful transforming force and a generator of creative solutions in relation to a given problem.

Do you know that women who are chaste remain much fresher than those who are not?

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.

Good painting is nothing else but a copy of the perfections of God and a reminder of His painting. Finally, good painting is a music and a melody which intellect only can appreciate, and with great difficulty.

To touch is to give life.

I couldn't give you something mediocre even if that's all you asked for.

There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.

Do not fret, for God did not create us to abandon us.

Sculpture is made by taking away, while painting is made by adding.

Lorenzo de' Medici seeks highly skilled, aesthetically oriented individual to conceive and implement several major public projects. You are a generalist with sound training in structural engineering, synthesis of pigments and Christian iconography. Some climbing involved

I am still learning. (at age 87)

The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself.

Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man.

I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint.

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

Do not be concerned that you might set a target too high and fail. Be concerned that you will set it too low and succeed.

The idea is there locked inside. All you have to do is remove the excess stone.

Genius is eternal patience.

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.

Can't you see the angel imprisoned in the block of stone trying to get out? I am trying to free him

No one has mastery, Before he is at the end, Of his art and his life.

Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.

If in my youth I had realized that the sustaining splendour of beauty of with which I was in love would one day flood back into my heart, there to ignite a flame that would torture me without end, how gladly would I have put out the light in my eyes.

So take care of your life and take notice and be observant, for the number of widows is always far greater than the number of widowers.

The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.

And still I am learning.

The goods of Fortune, even such as they really are, still need taste to enjoy them. It is the enjoying no the possessing, that makes us happy.

I already have a wife who is too much for me.. she is my art, and my works are my children.

Souls will never ascend to Heaven until the sight of beauty lifts them there.

My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness.

It is well with me only when I have a chisel in my hand.

I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.

A good sculpture can be rolled downhill without breaking.

The science of design, or of line-drawing, if you like to use this term, is the source and very essence of painting, sculpture, architecture... Sometimes... it seems to me that... all the works of the human brain and hand are either design itself or a branch of that art.

I dare affirm that any artist... who has nothing singular, eccentric, or at least reputed to be so, in his person, will never become a superior talent.

Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.

Critique by creating.

As you give out, so shall you receive.

I live and love in God's peculiar light.

Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.

Your greatness is measured by your horizons.

A great sculpture can roll down a hill without breaking.