Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) was a towering figure of the Italian Renaissance, excelling as a sculptor, painter, architect, and poet. His masterpiece “David” exemplifies his sculptural prowess, while the breathtaking frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel showcase his mastery of painting. Completed between 1508 and 1512, these frescoes depict scenes from the Book of Genesis and are celebrated for their intricate detail and profound emotional resonance.

Michelangelo’s contributions to architecture include his involvement in the design of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, though his original plans were later altered. His art reflects a deep understanding of human anatomy, emotion, and spirituality, imbued with a sense of grandeur and monumentality.

Beyond his artistic achievements, Michelangelo’s writings offer insights into his creative process and philosophical beliefs. His influence on subsequent generations of artists is immeasurable, with his works continuing to inspire awe and admiration centuries after their creation.

Despite his passing in 1564, Michelangelo’s legacy as one of the greatest artists in history endures, leaving an indelible mark on Western art and culture.

Michelangelo Buonarroti Quotes

01. “The noble heart finds most in starlike eyes.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

02. “Bana sevgili olan uykudur
bir güzelden daha güzel olan
bu kadar acı ve utanç doluyken içim
ne büyük şans kapanması kulaklarımın ve gözlerimin
bu yüzden fısıltı ile konuşun huzurumu bozmayın benim.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

03. “Anyone who follows others never passes them by, and anyone who does not know how to do good works on his own cannot make good use of works by others.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

04. “The best of artists hath no art 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.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

05. “Cruzimea n-are rost unde-i iubire si nici puterea unde-i umilinta; blandetea-nvinge orice-mpotrivire, ca veseli orice suferinta.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti, Rime
“Disegnia e no prder tepo [sic]”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

06. “If such a gift I truly have been given
And yet, divided, torn, still burn and stray
He is to blame who fashioned me for fire.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

07. “How wrong are those simpletons, of whom the world is full, who look more at… color than at the figures which show spirit and movement.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

08. “Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

09. “If we have been pleased with life ,we should not be displeased with death since it comes from the hand of the same master.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

10. “I am still learning.” -Michelangelo late in his life.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

11. “Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti died on 17 February 1564.
“Your greatness is measured by your horizons”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

12. “Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

13. “I’ve finished that chapel I was painting. The Pope is quite satisfied.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

14. “I live in sin, to kill myself I live; no longer my life my own, but sin’s; my good is given to me by heaven, my evil by myself, by my free will, of which I am deprived.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

15. “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

16. “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.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

17. “If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn’t call it genius. ”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

18. “Genius is eternal patience. ”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

19. “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

20. “Ancora Imparo
(Yet I am learning)”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

21. “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 Buonarroti

22. “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 Buonarroti

23. “The true work of art
is but a shadow of the divine perfection”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

24. “Critique by creating.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

25. “Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I accomplish.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

26. “The greatest artist does not have any concept
Which a single piece of marble does not itself contain
Within its excess, though only
A hand that obeys the intellect can discover it.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

27. “If I am more alive because love burns and chars me,
as a fire, given wood or wind, feels new elation,
it’s that he who lays me low is my salvation,
and invigorates the more, the more he scars me.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

28. “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 Buonarroti

29. “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

30. “With few words I shall make thee understand my soul.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

31. “Dear to me is sleep: still more, being made of stone,
While pain and guilt still linger here below,
Blindness and numbness–these please me alone;
Then do not wake me, keep your voices low.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

32. “I am still learning.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

33. “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

34. “Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

35. “Draw, Antonio; draw, Antonio; draw and don’t waste time.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

36. “Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

37. “Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

38. “Why do You Send Fools To judge My Work?”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

39. “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 Buonarroti

40. “Patience is eternal genius”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

41. “O night, O sweetest time, though black of hue,
with peace you force all the restless work to end;
those who exalt you see and understand,
and he is sound of mind who honours you.
You cut the thread of tired thoughts, for so
you offer calm in your moist shade; you send
to this low sphere the dreams where we ascend
up to the highest, where I long to go.
Shadow of death that brings to quiet close
all miseries that plague the heart and soul,
for those in pain the last and best of cures;
you heal the flesh of its infirmities,
dry and our tears and shut away our toil,
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

42. “AS YOU GIVE OUT SO SHALL YOU RECEIVE.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

43. “Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

44. “So now, from this mad passion
Which made me take art for an idol and a king
I have learnt the burden of error that it bore
And what misfortune springs from man’s desire…
The world’s frivolities have robbed me of the time
That I was given for reflecting upon God.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

45. “No thought is born in me that does not bear the image of death.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

46. “Precious is sleep, better to be of stone,
while the oppression and the shame still last;
not seeing and not hearing, I am blest;
so do not wake me, hush! keep your voice down.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

47. “I was never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop.”
― Michelangelo

48. “Is it any wonder, since, when near the fire,
I was melted and burned, if now that it’s extinguished
outside me, it besets and consumes me inside,
and bit by bit reduces me to ashes?”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

49. “Please don’t trouble yourself. God didn’t make us to abandon us.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

50. “Believe it or not, I can actually draw.”
― Michelangelo

51. “From such a gentle thing,from such a fountain of all delight,my every pain is born…”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

52. “Bound to you as the rays are to the sun.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

53. “You no longer feel the fear of a change of being and desire . . . The course of the hours lays not violent hands upon you ; necessity and chance guide not your steps … I can hardly write without envy.
–Michelangelo on the dead.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

54. “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.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

55. “I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

56. “In van! Cand vrei sa cazi, nu iei aminte la bratul care vrea sa te ridice.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

57. “I created a vision of David in my mind and simply carved away everything that was not David.”
― Michelangelo

58. “Don’t trouble yourself. God didn’t make us to abandon us.”
― Michelangelo Buonarrotigelo

59. “Your greatness is measured by your horizons.”
― Michelangelo

60. “ I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
― Michelangelo

61. “Self-negation is noble, self-culture is beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared to self-abuse.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

62. “The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; only the sculptor’s hand can break the spell to free the figures.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

63. “По-голямата опасност за мнозина от нас не е, че целта ни е твърде висока и се проваляме, а че е твърде ниска и я постигаме.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

64. “Se duc genii si durere, mor cuvinte si placere, generatii sub tacere, fum in vant, sub soare umbra.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

65. “Cel ce iubirea-si ia drept arma, frange destin si ura, forta si mizerii.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

66. “Lord free me of myself, so I can please you!”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

67. “Caro m’è ‘l sonno, e più l’esser di sasso,
mentre che ‘l danno e la vergogna dura;
non veder, non sentir m’è gran ventura;
però non mi destar, deh, parla basso.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

68. “My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

69. “I saw an angel in the block of marble and I just chiseled until I set him free.”
― Michelangelo

70. “Iar razbunarea e aceasta: intrucat noi l-am ucis pe el, el asa mort cum este ne-a luat lumina si cu ochii inchisi i-a inchis pe-ai nostri, care nu mai stralucesc deasupra pamantului.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

71. “Din ce e farmec si vremelnicie si indurare, raul meu se naste.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

72. “Ce viclesug, ce forta si ce geniu, stapan ingrat, m-ar duce iar la tine, chip milostiv ce-n inima porti moarte?”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

73. “The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

74. “If in my youth I had realized that the sustaining splendour of beauty of with which I was in love would one day flood back into my heart, there to ignite a flame that would torture me without end, how gladly would I have put out the light in my eyes.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

75. “I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint. Michelangelo I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

76. “Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture. Michelangelo I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

77. “Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop. Michelangelo The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

78. “If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

79. “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.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

80. “I live and love in God’s peculiar light.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

81. “From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

82. “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

83. “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.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

84. “The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

85. “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

86. “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

87. “I am still learning.:
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

88. “Genius is eternal patience.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

89. “Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

90. ” is no greater harm than that of time wasted.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

91. “grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

92. My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

93. 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 Buonarroti

94. A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

95. Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

96. I live in sin, to kill myself I live; no longer my life my own, but sin’s; my good is given to me by heaven, my evil by myself, by my free will, of which I am deprived.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

97. Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

98. Many believe – and I believe – that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

99. Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

100. A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

101. 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.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

102. Even if you are divine, you don’t disdain male consorts.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

103. It is well with me only when I have a chisel in my hand.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

104. 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 Buonarroti

105. What do you despise? By this you are truly known.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

106. The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one’s self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

107. The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.
― Michelangelo Buonarroti