Michelangelo Quotes
1. If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.
2. 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.
3. f you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn’t call it genius.
4. Genius is eternal patience.
5. Ancora Imparo
(Yet I am learning)
6. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
7. The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
8. The greatest artist does not have any concept
Which a single piece of marble does not itself contain
Within its excess, though only
A hand that obeys the intellect can discover it.
9. Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I accomplish.
10. “If I am more alive because love burns and chars me,
as a fire, given wood or wind, feels new elation,
it’s that he who lays me low is my salvation,
and invigorates the more, the more he scars me.
11. The true work of art
is but a shadow of the divine perfection
12. Critique by creating.
13. 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.
14. With few words I shall make thee understand my soul.
15. A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.
16. I am still learning.
17. Dear to me is sleep: still more, being made of stone,
While pain and guilt still linger here below,
Blindness and numbness–these please me alone;
Then do not wake me, keep your voices low.
18. Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.
19. Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.
20. Draw, Antonio; draw, Antonio; draw and don’t waste time.
21. Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
22. The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.
23. Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.
24. O night, O sweetest time, though black of hue,
with peace you force all the restless work to end;
those who exalt you see and understand,
and he is sound of mind who honours you.
You cut the thread of tired thoughts, for so
you offer calm in your moist shade; you send
to this low sphere the dreams where we ascend
up to the highest, where I long to go.
Shadow of death that brings to quiet close
all miseries that plague the heart and soul,
for those in pain the last and best of cures;
you heal the flesh of its infirmities,
dry and our tears and shut away our toil,
and free the good from wrath and fretting cares.
25. Patience is eternal genius
26. Why do You Send Fools To judge My Work?
27. AS YOU GIVE OUT SO SHALL YOU RECEIVE.
28. So now, from this mad passion
Which made me take art for an idol and a king
I have learnt the burden of error that it bore
And what misfortune springs from man’s desire…
The world’s frivolities have robbed me of the time
That I was given for reflecting upon God.
29. 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?
30. I was never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop.
31. Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.
32. Precious is sleep, better to be of stone,
while the oppression and the shame still last;
not seeing and not hearing, I am blest;
so do not wake me, hush! keep your voice down.
33. Please don’t trouble yourself. God didn’t make us to abandon us.
34. From such a gentle thing,from such a fountain of all delight,my every pain is born…
35. Believe it or not, I can actually draw.
36. Is it any wonder, since, when near the fire,
I was melted and burned, if now that it’s extinguished
outside me, it besets and consumes me inside,
and bit by bit reduces me to ashes?
37. You no longer feel the fear of a change of being and desire . . . The course of the hours lays not violent hands upon you ; necessity and chance guide not your steps … I can hardly write without envy.
–Michelangelo on the dead.
38. Bound to you as the rays are to the sun.
39. As when, O lady mine,
With chiselled touch
The stone unhewn and cold
Becomes a living mould,
The more the marble wastes,
The more the statue grows.
40. Self-negation is noble, self-culture is beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared to self-abuse.
41. In van! Cand vrei sa cazi, nu iei aminte la bratul care vrea sa te ridice.
42. I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.
43. Cel ce iubirea-si ia drept arma, frange destin si ura, forta si mizerii.
44. Don’t trouble yourself. God didn’t make us to abandon us.
45. 20. “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
46. The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; only the sculptor’s hand can break the spell to free the figures.
47. По-голямата опасност за мнозина от нас не е, че целта ни е твърде висока и се проваляме, а че е твърде ниска и я постигаме.
48. Se duc genii si durere, mor cuvinte si placere, generatii sub tacere, fum in vant, sub soare umbra.
49. si zi de zi, mahnindu-l viitorul, la gandul mortii tresarind exulta si intre teama si nadejde tine pe cai imaginare sa-si ia zborul.
50. Iar razbunarea e aceasta: intrucat noi l-am ucis pe el, el asa mort cum este ne-a luat lumina si cu ochii inchisi i-a inchis pe-ai nostri, care nu mai stralucesc deasupra pamantului
51. Din ce e farmec si vremelnicie si indurare, raul meu se naste.
52. Ce viclesug, ce forta si ce geniu, stapan ingrat, m-ar duce iar la tine, chip milostiv ce-n inima porti moarte?
53. The noble heart finds most in starlike eyes.
54. Anyone who follows others never passes them by, and anyone who does not know how to do good works on his own cannot make good use of works by others.
55. The best of artists hath no art to show,
Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell doth not include,
To break the marble spell, is all the hand that serves the brain can do.
56. I saw an angel in the block of marble and I just chiseled until I set him free.
57. Cruzimea n-are rost unde-i iubire si nici puterea unde-i umilinta; blandetea-nvinge orice-mpotrivire, ca veseli orice suferinta.
58. Caro m’è ‘l sonno, e più l’esser di sasso,
mentre che ‘l danno e la vergogna dura;
non veder, non sentir m’è gran ventura;
però non mi destar, deh, parla basso.
59. Disegnia e no prder tepo [sic]
60. Bana sevgili olan uykudur
bir güzelden daha güzel olan
bu kadar acı ve utanç doluyken içim
ne büyük şans kapanması kulaklarımın ve gözlerimin
bu yüzden fısıltı ile konuşun huzurumu bozmayın benim.
