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.
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Quotes by Michelangelo
Explore 25 verified and sourced quotes attributed to Michelangelo. Open any quote for its dedicated page, source details and related topics.
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Selected quotes by Michelangelo
The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.
My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness.
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.
I am still learning.
A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.
Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.
There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.
The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.
Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.
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.
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.
A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.
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.
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.
Genius is eternal patience.
Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.
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?
Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.
From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born.
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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