The 80 best phrases of Michelangelo (Michelangelo Buonarroti)

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, also known as Michelangelo, was one of the most acclaimed painters, architects and sculptors of Renaissance Italy, recognized for his works as ‘Creation’, ‘El David’ or ‘La Piedad’. Coming from a modest family, he managed to work on his artistic passion until he came under the tutelage of important families like the Medici of Florence and worked for the Vatican.

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The best phrases of Michelangelo

Although we know him as a painter and sculptor, he was also an urban planner, engineer, architect and poet. And with these phrases and reflections we will understand the way of seeing the life of one of the most amazing minds in the history of mankind.

1. Perfection is not a small thing, but it is made of small things.

With practice you can achieve perfection.

2. Genius is eternal patience.

Great things are achieved with time and perseverance.

3. I can't live under pressure from clients, much less paint.

Sometimes clients can be the biggest opponents.

4. While the Dome of Saint Peter was being built, some of his friends told Michelangelo: “You should make your lantern very different from Filippo Brunelleschi's. "And he replied:" It can be done very differently, but not better.

An interesting conversation about the famous dome of San Pedro made by Michelangelo.

5. Me and a feast of bread and wine, we have a party.

We don't need many things to have a good time.

6. Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.

The art and the artist are one.

7. The true work of art is but a shadow of divine perfection.

The relationship between his art and his religious beliefs.

8. The dream is pleasant to me; but much more to be made of stone.

You must never stop having your feet on the ground. Especially because that way we can fulfill our dreams.

9. My eyes, that lust for beautiful things as my soul yearns for their health, do not display any virtue other than to aspire to heaven, than to look at those.

The beautiful things are those that generate us some perpetual emotion.

10. Lord, make me always want more than I can achieve.

You always have to aspire to keep growing.

11. Already at 16, my mind was a battlefield: my love of pagan beauty, the male nude, at war with my religious faith. A polarity of themes and forms, one spiritual and the other earthly.

Expressing his vision of art at such a young age.

12. When I returned, I found that he was famous. The city council asked me to remove a colossal David from a block of marble, damaged! Almost twenty feet.

The surprise of discovering that it was someone famous.

13. When I told my father that I wanted to be an artist, he was enraged ":" Artists are workers, not better than shoemakers. "

Never let anyone rule your life. Not even your parents.

14. Death and love are the two wings that carry the good man to heaven.

What is it that makes us earn heaven?

15 There is no harm as great as wasted time.

Lost time is never made up.

16. Beauty is the purging of the superfluous.

Beauty is not always about the superficial.

17. It is painted with the brain, not with the hands.

Creativity is the most appreciated tool in art.

18. Each stone block has a statue inside and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.

Each sculptor looks in a stone at a beautiful work.

19. I'm only okay with myself when I have a chisel in my hand.

Talking about the naturalness of doing your job.

20. Love is the wing that God has given man to fly to Him.

Another reference to his deep devotion to religion.

21. The frivolities of the world have stolen my time. This has made me reflect on God.

We reach a point where frivolity makes us see a very dark side of man.

22. With few words I will make you understand my soul.

How would you be able to describe your soul?

23. I live and love the peculiar light of God.

For Michelangelo, God was everything.

24. My joy is melancholy.

There are those who find in melancholy a perpetual inspiration.

25. There have been many kings, but only one Michelangelo.

Words by Pietro Aretino about the wonderful work of Michelangelo.

26. I just have to carve out the rough walls that imprison the precious apparition to reveal other eyes as I see them with my own.

Explaining the way in which he manages to make his sculptures.

27. The best artist only has to think that it is contained within the marble cover, only the hand of the sculptor can break the spell to free the sleeping figures in the stone.

An essential part of the work of sculptors is their ability to see the potential behind the stone.

28. I was never the type of painter or sculptor who owned a store.

Referring to the fact that he was not inclined to commercialize his art.

29. The greatest danger for most of us is not that our goal is too high and we will not reach it, but that it is too low and we will achieve it.

A great phrase to reflect on the goals we set for ourselves.

30. Tell me, oh God, if my eyes really see the faithful truth of beauty; or if beauty is in my mind, and my eyes see it wherever they turn.

Is beauty a mental construction or is it part of the world?

31. If you knew how much work goes into it, you wouldn't call it a genius.

Everyone believes that geniuses are some kind of divinities who do not strive.

32. The chapel will be finished when I am satisfied with its artistic qualities.

Declaration on the completion of his work in the Sistine Chapel.

33. After four years of torture, and more than 400 life-size figures, I felt as old and exhausted as Jeremías.

Work, even if we love it, is exhausting.

34. If there are air bubbles in the marble, I am wasting my time.

Not all stones are ideal for making a sculpture.

35. Many believe, and I believe, that they have been appointed for this work of God. Despite my advanced age, I don't want to give it up, I work out of love for God and put all my hope in him.

Find a job that you love so much that you want to do it for your whole life.

36. All the mathematics in the world will never make up for lack of genius again.

Being a genius does not only involve the logical side, but also the creative side.

37. What spirit is so empty and blind that it cannot notice the fact that the human foot is more noble than the shoe and that the human skin is more beautiful than the garment with which it is covered?

Material things only give momentary pleasure. The true value is in who we are.

38. I saw the angel on the marble and carved it until I released it.

Referring to one of his sculptures.

39. Architecture depends on the members of man.

It is the people who make the architecture.

40. Life is the gift that God gives us. The way you live your life is the gift you give to God.

A great reflection on the meaning of life.

41. You can buy my time, but not my mind.

No one can master your skills.

42. I was 37 years old and even my friends no longer recognized the old man I had become.

Speaking of how much exhaustion had taken its toll on his health and appearance.

43. The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain ghosts.

Not all promises are kept.

44. Since daybreak you can think: today I have to meet an indiscreet, an ungrateful, an insolent, an envious and a selfish.

It all starts with a good attitude when you wake up.

45. I am still learning.

We never stop learning.

46. I don't know which is preferable: evil that does good or good that does evil.

Which do you think will be preferable?

47. The great artist does not have a concept that the marble itself does not circumscribe in its excess, but only to such high the hand that obeys the intellect.

As he said before, to create a work it is necessary to attend to ingenuity.

48. Marble is like man, before embarking on something, you know it well and you know everything that is inside.

An important clarification about the material he used for his creations.

49. If we have been satisfied with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the teacher himself.

Death is just an unavoidable part of life.

50. How can I make a sculpture? Simply removing from the marble block everything that is not necessary.

Explaining the 'simplicity' of his work, from his perspective.

51. The evil that fled and the good that I promise, in you, beautiful, divine, haughty lady, it still hides; and because more does not live, contrary I have the art to the desired effect.

A sample of his talent as a poet.

52. Perhaps I can give you and me long life with the chisel or the colors, adding my love and your countenance.

Another fragment of a poem that lets us see his sensitive side towards letters.

53. Faith in yourself is the best and safest way.

We will achieve nothing if we are not able to trust what we can do.

54. I am a poor man of little value, who is working in that art that God has given me to prolong my life as long as possible.

It seems that humility and simplicity were a fundamental part of Michelangelo.

55. Nature made all things right.

Nature is never wrong.

56 I live here locked up, like the pasty medium inside the crust of bread, poor and alone, like a genie locked in a bottle.

We have all felt trapped and lost at one time or another.

57. Sweet doubt to those who cannot harm the truth.

Sooner or later, the truth always triumphs.

58. From such a sweet thing, from such a source of delight, all pain is born.

Sometimes the origin of pain is what once made us happy.

59. Just as in pen and ink the high with the low style exists, in folio or marble, rich or vile the form is dressed, according to who carves or paints it.

An interesting arts recruitment.

60. It is such a beautiful work that whoever contemplates it today does not consider it the production of a young man, but of a precious and accomplished master in the study and practical in his art.

Vasari talking about the Battle of Hercules with the centaurs.

61. Architecture is nothing more than the order, the arrangement, the beautiful appearance, the proportion of the parts between them, the comfort and the distribution.

His explanation of the architecture.

62. Lord, make me see your glory everywhere.

There are times when we need divine guidance to help us.

63. Therefore, Love or your beauty or hardness or fortune or great deviation is not to blame for my evil, destiny or luck; If in your heart death and pity you carry time, my low ingenuity does not know, burning, but to draw death from there.

There are people stuck so deep in their sorrows that no love or joy can reach them.

64. From the high stars descends a splendor that encourages us to go after them and here it is called love. The heart does not find anything better than to fall in love with it, and burn and advise that two eyes resemble two stars.

Love manages to transform our life.

65. There is no idea that cannot be expressed in marble.

The only limit is the one we impose on ourselves.

66. It is necessary to keep our compass in the eyes and not in the hand, so that the hands execute, but the eyes judge.

You always have to have a critical eye to help us improve.

67 Everything hurts.

A simple but stark statement of how exhausted Michelangelo was.

68. And a thousand years after leaving, your winning spells will show, and how right I was to be your lover.

Sometimes we are not able to appreciate what we have until we lose it.

69. If people knew how hard I had to work to earn my master's degree, it doesn't seem so wonderful at all.

Many admire the results but ignore the process.

70. The more the marble waste, the more the statue grows.

There are excellent things that arise out of a sea of ​​chaos.

71. By sculpture I understand what is done by dint of removing (per. forza di levare), since what is done by dint of adding (per via di porre) —that is, by modeling— is more like painting.

Talking about what sculpture means to him.

72. From Rafael: "Everything he knows about art he learned from me."

Words from a proud or resentful teacher?

73. I have never felt saved by nature. I love cities above all else.

Despite seeing beauty in nature, Michelangelo had the soul of a city dweller.

74. Giorgio, if there is something good in my wit, I owe it to having been born in the subtlety of the air of your land of Arezzo and having sucked with the milk of my nurse the chisels and the mallet with which I make my figures.

Conversation with Giorgio Vasari.

75. I always abstained from it out of respect for my father and my brothers; Although I have served three potatoes, I did so under duress. I think that's all.

Talking about having a store, which didn't appeal to him at all.

76. I have always strived to resurrect our family, but I have had no siblings worthy of it.

The family is not always grateful.

77. The Mother had to be young, younger than the Son, to prove herself eternally Virgin; while the Son, incorporated into our human nature, should appear as any other man in his mortal remains.

Reference on the youth of the Virgin Mary in La Piedad.

78. People in love with God never grow old.

Another response from the sculptor when asked about the youth of the Virgin Mary in La Piedad.

79. My soul does not find a stairway to heaven unless it is through the beauty of the earth.

To get to heaven it is important to do well on earth.

80. As rich as I may have been, I have always lived poorly.

Our origin teaches us lessons that are difficult to unlearn.