Michelangelo Quotes
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Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.
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The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself.
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Lord free me of myself, so I can please you!
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Let it be enough for you to have bread and live virtuously and poorly like Christ, as I do here. I live meanly and don't bother about life or honor ... and I live with the greatest toil and a thousand worries. It is now about 15 years since I had a happy hour.
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I criticise by creation, not by finding fault.
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Sculpture is made by taking away, while painting is made by adding.
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From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born.
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Serene I fold my hands and wait.
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The goods of Fortune, even such as they really are, still need taste to enjoy them. It is the enjoying no the possessing, that makes us happy.
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I serve for the love of God and in Him have all my hope.
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Let whoever may have attained to so much as to have the power of drawing know that he holds a great treasure.
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No thought is born in me that does not bear the image of death.
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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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No great work of art is ever finished.
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Genius is eternal patience.
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So now, from this mad passion Which made me take art for an idol and a king I have learnt the burden of error that it bore And what misfortune springs from man's desire... The world's frivolities have robbed me of the time That I was given for reflecting upon God.
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Lord, make me see thy glory in every place.
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In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.
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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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Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.
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Trifles make perfection but perfection is not a trifle.
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Led by long years to my last hours, too late, O world, I know your joys for what they are. You promise a peace which is not yours to give and the repose that dies before it is born. The years of fear and shame to which Heaven now set a term, renew nothing in me but the old sweet error in which, living overlong a man kills his soul with no gain to his body. I say and I know having put it to the proof, that he has the better part in Heaven whose death falls nearest his birth.
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Patience is eternal genius.
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Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.