Michelangelo Buonarroti | Drawings | Page 3

• My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness.
• The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor's hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone.
• The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself.
• The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
• 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.
• The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.
• The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.