Quotes by Michelangelo

My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earths loveliness.

If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.

I am still learning.

The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell The sculptors hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone.

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.

I live and love in Gods 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.

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

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

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

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

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

The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell The sculptors hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone.

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

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

“Your greatness is measured by your horizons.”