Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564), known as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspired by models from classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art.
Michelangelo Quotes
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
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.
—Michelangelo
A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.
—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
My soul can find no staircase to heaven unless it be through earth’s loveliness.
—Michelangelo
Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
—Michelangelo
Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I accomplish.
—Michelangelo
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.
—Michelangelo
Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.
—Michelangelo
No thought is born in me that does not bear the image of death.
—Michelangelo
The noble heart finds most in starlike eyes.
—Michelangelo
Take care of yourself, and watch out for those you have to watch out for, for one does not die more than once, and nobody returns to put right the things done wrong.
—Michelangelo
Draw, Antonio; draw, Antonio; draw and don’t waste time.
—Michelangelo
Bound to you as the rays are to the sun.
—Michelangelo
Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.
—Michelangelo