Quote collection
148 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Heaven-born, the soul a heavenward course must hold; beyond the world she soars; the wise man, I affirm, can find no rest in that which perishes, nor will he lend his heart to ought that doth time depend"
"Poets and painters have the power to dare, I mean to dare to do whatever they may approve of."
"There is an angel imprisoned in it and I must set it free."
"I give my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin, charging them to remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ."
"The great tragedy of life is not that people set their sights too high and fail to achieve their goals but that they set their sights too low and do."
"From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born."
"There is no tongue to speak his eulogy; Too brightly burned his splendour for our eyes: Far easier to condemn his injurers, Than for the tongue to reach his smallest worth. He to the realms of sinfulness came down, To teach mankind; ascending then to God, Heaven unbarred to him her lofty gates, To whom his country hers refused to ope. Ungrateful land, to its own injury Nurse of his fate! Well too does this instruct, That greatest ills fall to the perfectest. And 'midst a thousand proofs, let this suffice, That, as his exile had no parallel, So never was there man more great than he."
"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."
"Even if you are divine, you don't disdain male consorts."
"I am no artist - please come and help me."
"I was never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop."
"Whenever a great painter... does a work which appears to be false and lying, that falsity is very true."
"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."
"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."
"My beard towards heaven, I feel my nape support / The back of my head, I grow the breast of a harpy / And my brush as it drips continually / Upon my face, makes it a gorgeous floor."
"It is therefore indisputable that the limbs of architecture are derived from the limbs of man."
"In my opinion painting should be considered excellent in proportion as it approaches the effect of relief, while relief should be considered bad in proportion as it approaches the effect of painting."
"One paints with one's head, not one's hand."
"The best of artists hath no thought 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."
"I am always learning."