Michelangelo Quotes
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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.
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An artist must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye.
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When they asked Michelangelo how he made his statue of David he is reported to have said, "It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David.
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If people knew how hard I worked at my art, they would not consider me a genius.
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Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.
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Even if you are divine, you don't disdain male consorts.
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If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius.
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Gazing on beautiful things acts on my soul.
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It is better decoration when, in painting, some monstrosity is introduced for variety and a relaxation of the senses and to attract the attention of mortal eyes, which at times desire to see that which they have never seen.
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Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man.
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I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
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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.
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No thought is born in me that does not bear the image of death.
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I was never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop.
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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.
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Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.
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Lord free me of myself, so I can please you!
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One paints with one's head, not one's hand.
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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.
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Is it any wonder, since, when near the fire, I was melted and burned, if now that it's extinguished outside me, it besets and consumes me inside, and bit by bit reduces me to ashes?
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The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.
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For those who feel it, nothing makes the soul so religious and pure as the endeavor to create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives after it, is striving after something divine. True painting is only the image of the perfection of God, a shadow of the pencil with which he paints, a melody, a striving after harmony.
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Dear to me is sleep: still more, being made of stone, While pain and guilt still linger here below, Blindness and numbness--these please me alone; Then do not wake me, keep your voices low.
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Trifles make perfection but perfection is not a trifle.