Michelangelo Buonarroti Quotes

“If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius. ”

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

“Draw, Antonio; draw, Antonio; draw and don’t waste time.”

“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?”

“Critique by creating.”

“But if it so happens ... a work ... under pain of otherwise becoming shameful or false, requires fantasy ... [and that] certain limbs or elements of a figure are altered by borrowing from other species, for example transforming into a dolphin the hinder end of a griffon or a stag ... these alterations will be excellent and the substitution, however unreal it may seem, deserves to be declared a fine invention in the genre of the monstrous.When a painter introduces into this kind of work of art chimerae and other imaginary beings in order to divert and entertain the senses and also to captivate the eyes of mortals who long to see unclassified and impossible things, he shows himself more respectful of reason than if he produced the usual figures of men or of animals.”

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.”