Michelangelo

The owl is the bird of Minerva, and the sculptor must be wise like her.

Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop.

I am not a painter, I am a sculptor who paints.

The nose of the statue I made is too big; I must alter it.

To the artist, there is never anything ugly in nature.

Criticism is the art where one judges those who judge.

I live and work for no other reason than to perfect my craft.

The divine is in the detail.

Age has given me wisdom, but taken my strength.

In my work, I seek the soul's expression.

Fame is but the breath of the people.

I regret only that I have not done more.

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

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.

My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness.

True art is made by the soul, not by the hands.

To know how to use the chisel, you must know how to use the brush.

What spirit is so empty and dead that it cannot by its own accord, at least in dream, enter into the work of art and find itself in the presence of God?

The artist has no other object than to make his work perfect.

My greatest fear is that when I die, I will have wasted my life.