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My Beard Towards Heaven, I Feel My Nape Support / The Back Of My Head, I Grow The Breast Of A Harpy / And My Brush As It Drips Continually / Upon My Face, Makes It A Gorgeous Floor.

-Michelangelo

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My Beard Towards Heaven,

Michelangelo

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My Beard Towards Heaven, I Feel My Nape Support / The Back Of My Head, I Grow The Breast Of A Harpy / And My Brush As It Drips Continually / Upon My Face, Makes It A Gorgeous Floor.

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Already At Sixteen, My Mind Was A Battlefield: My Love Of Pagan Beauty, The Male Nude, At War With My Religious Faith. A Polarity Of Themes And Forms: One Spiritual, The Other Earthly.

The More The Marble Wastes, The More The Statue Grows.

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With Few Words I Shall Make Thee Understand My Soul.

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A Good Sculpture Can Be Rolled Downhill Without Breaking.

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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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Do Not Be Concerned That You Might Set A Target Too High And Fail. Be Concerned That You Will Set It Too Low And Succeed.

Beauty Is The Purgation Of Superfluities.

If You Knew How Much Work Went Into It, You Wouldn't Call It Genius.

Whenever A Great Painter... Does A Work Which Appears To Be False And Lying, That Falsity Is Very True.

I Cannot Live Under Pressures From Patrons, Let Alone Paint.

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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.

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There Is No Greater Harm Than That Of Time Wasted.

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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.

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.

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The Hand That Follows Intellect Can Achieve.

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Trifles Make Perfection But Perfection Is Not A Trifle

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I Serve For The Love Of God And In Him Have All My Hope.

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.

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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Art Is A Shadow Of Divine Perfection.

Gazing On Beautiful Things Acts On My Soul.

Do You Know That Women Who Are Chaste Remain Much Fresher Than Those Who Are Not?

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I Am Still Learning. (at Age 87)

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.

Draw, Antonio; Draw, Antonio; Draw And Don’t Waste Time.

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The Marble Not Yet Carved Can Hold The Form Of Every Thought The Greatest Artist Has.

Love Is A Beautiful Image Imagined Or Seen Within The Heart, The Friend Of Virtue And Gentility.

It Is Therefore Indisputable That The Limbs Of Architecture Are Derived From The Limbs Of Man.

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.

Perfection Is No Small Thing, But It Is Made Up Of Small Things.

I Couldn't Give You Something Mediocre Even If That's All You Asked For.

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.

Why Do You Send Fools To Judge My Work?

I Feast On Wine And Bread, And Feasts They Are.

It Is Not Sufficient Merely To Be A Great Master In Painting And Very Wise, But I Think That It Is Necessary For The Painter To Be Very Moral In His Mode Of Life, Or Even, If Such Were Possible, A Saint, So That The Holy Spirit May Inspire His Intellect.

To Touch Is To Give Life.

Your Greatness Is Measured By Your Horizons.

Let Whoever May Have Attained To So Much As To Have The Power Of Drawing Know That He Holds A Great Treasure.

If People Knew How Hard I Worked At My Art, They Would Not Consider Me A Genius.

Can't You See The Angel Imprisoned In The Block Of Stone Trying To Get Out? I Am Trying To Free Him

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