I created a vision of David in my mind and simply carved away everything that was not David.
He who does not master the nude cannot understand the principles of architecture.
Good painting is nothing else but a copy of the perfections of God and a reminder of His painting. Finally, good painting is a music and a melody which intellect only can appreciate, and with great difficulty.
No one has mastery, Before he is at the end, Of his art and his life.
Serene I fold my hands and wait.
Already at sixteen, 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, the other earthly.
Poets and painters have the power to dare, I mean to dare to do whatever they may approve of...
There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.
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.
To touch is to give life.
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.