"If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all."

"Your lordship, only worldly light in this age of ours, you can never be pleased with another man's work for there is …"

"Beauty is the purgation of superfluities."

"I was never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop."

"As when, O lady mine, With chiseled touch The stone unhewn and cold Becomes a living mold, The more the marble wastes…"

"A quel pietoso fonte, onde siam tutti, S'assembra ogni beltà che qua si vede, Più c'altra cosa alle persone accorte;"

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

"Recollect that trifles make perfection, and that perfection is no trifle."

"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 reac…"

"If you knew how much work went into it, you would not call it genius."