Quotes By Michelangelo

Many believe - and I believe - that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him.

I live and love in God's peculiar light.

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

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.

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.

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.

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

I am still learning.

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

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

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.

A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.

It is necessary to keep one's compass in one's eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Genius is eternal patience.

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.