30+ Michelangelo Quotes to Inspire Creativity, Passion, and the Pursuit of Excellence
- March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564
- Born in the Republic of Florence (now Italy)
- Sculptor, painter, architect, poet
- Produced many masterpieces that represent Renaissance art, including the “David” statue, the “Pietà,” and the “Sistine Chapel ceiling”
- “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.”
- “What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed?”
- “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
- “The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.”
- “Genius is eternal patience.”
- “I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint.”
- “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
- “What do you despise? By this you are truly known.”
- “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.”
- “The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself.”
- “The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.”
- “Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.”
- “Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.”
- “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.”
- “If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.”
- “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
- “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.”
- “Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop.”
- “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.”
- “The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows.”
- “It is well with me only when I have a chisel in my hand.”
- “Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.”
- “Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.”
- “There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.”
- “A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.”
- “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.”