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.
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.
Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
No thought is born in me that does not bear the image of death.
But if it so happens ... a work ... under pain of otherwise becoming shameful or false, requires fantasy ... [and that] certain limbs or elements of a figure are altered by borrowing from other species, for example transforming into a dolphin the hin...
If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius.
If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.
Ancora Imparo (Yet I am learning)
Draw, Antonio; draw, Antonio; draw and don’t waste time.
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.
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.
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.
AS YOU GIVE OUT SO SHALL YOU RECEIVE.
