Michelangelo Quotes
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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.
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After four tortured years, more than 400 over life-sized figures, I felt as old and as weary as Jeremiah. I was only 37, yet friends did not recognize the old man I had become.
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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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I am no artist - please come and help me.
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In my opinion painting should be considered excellent in proportion as it approaches the effect of relief, while relief should be considered bad in proportion as it approaches the effect of painting.
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Gazing on beautiful things acts on my soul.
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If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius.
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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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Even if you are divine, you don't disdain male consorts.
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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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Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man.
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I was never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop.
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The power of one fair face makes my love sublime, for it has weaned my heart from low desires.
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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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I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
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One paints with one's head, not one's hand.
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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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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.
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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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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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If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.
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Lord free me of myself, so I can please you!