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.
Michelangelo

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

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

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

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

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

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.
Michelangelo

I am still learning.
Michelangelo

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

A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.
Michelangelo

Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.
Michelangelo

Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.
Michelangelo

Genius is eternal patience.
Michelangelo

Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.
Michelangelo

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.
Michelangelo

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

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.
Michelangelo

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

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.
Michelangelo

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

The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.
Michelangelo

There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.
Michelangelo

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

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?
Michelangelo

I live and love in God’s peculiar light.
Michelangelo

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.
Michelangelo

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.
Michelangelo

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.
Michelangelo

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.
Michelangelo

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

Even if you are divine, you don’t disdain male consorts.
Michelangelo

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

I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.
Michelangelo

From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born.
Michelangelo

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

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

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.
Michelangelo

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.
Michelangelo