Michelangelo

Michelangelo

20 quotes

The Italian artist and architect Michelangelo is someone whose pithy observations have become part of everyday conversation. The range of their thinking — from Best to Art — speaks to an intellectual restlessness that shows in every quote. Our collection holds 30 quotes from Michelangelo, each offering a different angle on Best, Art, God, Alone, and Work. A favorite of many readers: "The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself."

“Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.”

— Michelangelo

Art

All Quotes by 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

Death

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

— Michelangelo

Best

“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

Best

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

— Michelangelo

Art

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

— Michelangelo

Imagination

“Genius is eternal patience.”

— Michelangelo

Patience

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

— Michelangelo

Alone

“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

Beauty

“I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.”

— Michelangelo

Hope

“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

Alone

“I live and love in God's peculiar light.”

— Michelangelo

Faith

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

— Michelangelo

Nature

“I am still learning.”

— Michelangelo

Learning

“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

Art

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

— Michelangelo

Art

“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

Age

“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

Beauty

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

— Michelangelo

Death

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

— Michelangelo

Alone

“Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.”

— Michelangelo

Art