Michelangelo Quotes

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

— Michelangelo

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.

— Michelangelo

“I live and love in God's peculiar light.”

— Michelangelo

“Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.”

— Michelangelo

“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.”

— Michelangelo

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

— Michelangelo

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

— Michelangelo

“The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.”

— Michelangelo

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

— Michelangelo

“Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.”

— Michelangelo

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

— Michelangelo

“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.”

— Michelangelo

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

— Michelangelo

“I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.”

— Michelangelo

Do you know that women who are chaste remain much fresher than those who are not?

— Michelangelo

Sculpture is made by taking away, while painting is made by adding.

— Michelangelo

“An artist does his most difficult work when he steps back from the blank canvas and thinks about what he is going to create.”

— Michelangelo

Lord, make me see thy glory in every place.

— Michelangelo

I created a vision of David in my mind and simply carved away everything that was not David.

— Michelangelo

“The hand that follows intellect can achieve.”

— Michelangelo

“I criticise by creation, not by finding fault.”

— Michelangelo

“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.”

— Michelangelo

“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.”

— Michelangelo

“An artist must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye.”

— Michelangelo

Let whoever may have attained to so much as to have the power of drawing know that he holds a great treasure.

— Michelangelo

“Serene I fold my hands and wait.”

— Michelangelo

“No one has mastery, Before he is at the end, Of his art and his life.”

— Michelangelo

I always liked instrumental music, and I think there's a vehicle out there for it. I think a true artist not only records, but you have to perform and you have to have some kind of consistent output. You can't just put out an album every ten years and never play - that's not an artist, that's something else. But I find there's always been a vehicle for what I've done, because I get out there and play all the time. I say 12 hundred shows on my website just in case, because we can't verify it, but it's more like 15 hundred!

— Michelangelo

“It is therefore indisputable that the limbs of architecture are derived from the limbs of man.”

— Michelangelo

“Heaven-born, the soul a heavenward course must hold; beyond the world she soars; the wise man, I affirm, can find no rest in that which perishes, nor will he lend his heart to ought that doth time depend”

— Michelangelo

“The idea is there locked inside. All you have to do is remove the excess stone.”

— Michelangelo

“If people knew how hard I worked at my art, they would not consider me a genius.”

— Michelangelo

“Why do You Send Fools To judge My Work?”

— Michelangelo

“What one has most to work and struggle for in painting is to do the work with a great amount of labour and sweat in such a way that it may afterward appear, however much it was laboured upon, to have been done almost quickly and almost without any labour, and very easily, although it was not.”

— Michelangelo

“Perfection is no small thing, but it is made up of small things.”

— Michelangelo

“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.”

— Michelangelo

And who is so barbarous as not to understand that the foot of a man is nobler than his shoe, and his skin nobler than that of the sheep with which he is clothed.

— Michelangelo

“If I love in thee, beloved, only what thou lovest most, do not be angry; for so one spirit is enamoured of another.”

— Michelangelo

Art is a shadow of Divine perfection.

— Michelangelo

“If there is some good in me, it is because I was born in the subtle atmosphere of your country of Arezzo. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, with which I make my figures.”

— Michelangelo

The best of artists hath no thought to show which the rough stone in its superfluous shell doth not include; to break the marble spell is all the hand that serves the brain can do.

— Michelangelo

“I feast on wine and bread, and feasts they are.”

— Michelangelo

“And still I am learning.”

— Michelangelo

“Painters are not in any way unsociable through pride, but either because they find few pursuits equal to painting, or in order not to corrupt themselves with the useless conversation of idle people, and debase the intellect from the lofty imaginations in which they are always absorbed.”

— Michelangelo

“Forgiveness is divine, but never pay pull price for late pizza.”

— Michelangelo

Painting and sculpture, labour and good faith, have been my ruin and I continually go from bad to worse. Better it would have been for me if I had set myself to making matches in my youth. I should not be in such distress of mind.

— Michelangelo

Love is a beautiful image Imagined or seen within the heart, The friend of virtue and gentility.

— Michelangelo

“Nature did all things well”

— Michelangelo

“If it be true that any beautiful thing raises the pure and just desire of man from earth to God, the eternal fount of all, such I believe my love.”

— Michelangelo

“There is an angel imprisoned in it and I must set it free.”

— Michelangelo