Quotes By Michelangelo

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

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.

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

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

What do you despise? By this you are truly known.

Genius is eternal patience.

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.

Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.

The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.

There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.

From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born.

I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.

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

Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.

The greatest artist has no conception which a single block of white marble does not potentially contain within its mass, but only a hand obedient to the mind can penetrate to this image.

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

Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.

The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.

I live in sin, to kill myself I live; no longer my life my own, but sin's; my good is given to me by heaven, my evil by myself, by my free will, of which I am deprived.

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.

Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.

I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.

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

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.

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

I am still learning.

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.