In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.
I serve for the love of God and in Him have all my hope.
He who follows another will never overtake him.
Your greatness is measured by your horizons.
As you give out, so shall you receive.
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.
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.
The hand that follows intellect can achieve.
I criticise by creation, not by finding fault.
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.
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.
Do you know that women who are chaste remain much fresher than those who are not?
The mind, the soul, becomes ennobled by the endeavour to create something perfect, for God is perfection, and whoever strives after perfection is striving for something devine.
However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man.
To know each other is the best way to understand each other. To understand each other is the only way to love each other.
Souls will never ascend to Heaven until the sight of beauty lifts them there.
It is therefore indisputable that the limbs of architecture are derived from the limbs of man.
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.
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.
Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.