Quotes from Michelangelo

True art is made noble and religious by the mind producing it.

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

It is well with me only when I have a chisel in my hand.

Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.

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

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."

Beauty depends on purpose. It is in the elements best suited to their purpose or aim that beauty shines forth most strongly.

Souls will never ascend to Heaven until the sight of beauty lifts them there.

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

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.

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

Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.

Art lives on constraint and dies of freedom.

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

I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint.

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.

I live and love in God's peculiar light.

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.

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

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.

Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.

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.

The power of one fair face makes my love sublime, for it has weaned my heart from low desires.

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.