Quotes from Michelangelo

Lord, make me see thy glory in every place.

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.

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

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.

I saw an angel in the block of marble and I just chiseled 'til I set him free.

Genius is eternal patience.

Trifles make perfection - and perfection is no trifle.

The greatest risk to man is not that he aims to high and misses, but that he aims to low and hits.

Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man.

However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man.

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.

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

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.

My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness.

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

No great work of art is ever finished.

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

Many believe - and I believe - that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him.

Why do You Send Fools To judge My Work?

I am still learning.

Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop.

I'm still learning.

Whenever a great painter... does a work which appears to be false and lying, that falsity is very true.

I already have a wife who is too much for me.. she is my art, and my works are my children.