Michelangelo Quotes

I am always learning.

Nature did all things well

The goods of Fortune, even such as they really are, still need taste to enjoy them. It is the enjoying no the possessing, that makes us happy.

Perchance that I might learn what pity is, That I might laugh at erring men no more.

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?

I sometimes set myself thinking and imagining that I find amongst men but one single art or science, and that is drawing or painting, all others being members proceeding therefrom.

We...believe that art is religious, because it is one of man's highest aspirations. There is no such thing as pagan art, only good and bad art.

Those partial to drink were hiding faults and dishonesty. They were sloppy souls, even the ones with pleasant manners and fine noses.

A good sculpture can be rolled downhill without breaking.

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.

Life should be taken ironically; otherwise, it becomes a tragedy.

Fitzgerald said a very interesting thing in his diary; that human life proceeds from the good to the less good - that is, it's always worse as you go on. That's true.

All I know is that we are loaded down with old and stale stuff - habits, customs, old attitudes already dead and gone.

Do you really think a man must be strong, masculine, dominating, and the woman frail, obedient and sensitive? This is a conventional idea. Reality is quite different.

There can be no censorship better than one's own conscience.

I can't imagine love without a sexual charge.

I don't want what I am saying to sound like a prophecy or anything like an analysis of modern society .... these are only feelings I have, and I am the least speculative man on earth.

Women are a finer filter of reality. They can sniff things.

Everyone has understood me in his own way. But I would have to understand myself first in order to judge - and so far, I haven't.

I never feel empty. I travel a lot and I think about other films.

When I see a good film, it's like a whiplash. I run away, in order not to be influenced. Thus, the films I liked most are those I think least about.

One of the problems of the future world will be the use of leisure time. How will it be filled up? Maybe drugs will be distributed free of charge by the government.

It isn't easy to understand the lives of people different from your own.

I've never had a method of working. I change according to circumstances; I don't employ any particular technique or style. I make films instinctively, more with my belly than with my brain.

I believe in the autobiographical concept only to the degree that I am able to put onto film all that's passing through my head at the moment of shooting.

I don't know whether I am ever bored. I never look at myself.

In any case, the idea of giving "all" of reality is overly simple and absurd.

I'll go on making films until I make one that pleases me from the first to the last frame. Then I'll quit.

There are many ways of communicating. Some hold the theory that new forms of communication between people can be obtained through hallucinogenic drugs.

I'm more or less skeptical about marriage, because of family ties, relations between children and parents - it's all so depressing.

You can't go to an LSD or pot party unless you take it yourself. If I want to go, I must take drugs myself.

Actors are always a little high at work. Acting is their drug. So when you put the brakes on, they're naturally a little disappointed.

When you work on a character, you form in your mind an image of what he ought to look like. Then you go and find one who resembles him.

I'm not rich and maybe I'll never be rich. Money is useful - yes - but I don't worship it.

Normally, however, I try to avoid repetitions of any shot.

I am neither a sociologist nor a politician. All I can do is imagine for myself what the future will be like.

Hollywood doesn't believe in the death penalty for anyone except people who get cable TV without paying for it. Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.

It's only human and natural that an actor should see the film in terms of his own part, but I, as a director, have to see the film as a whole. He must therefore collaborate selflessly, totally.

Method actors are absolutely terrible. They want to direct themselves, and it's a disaster.

I forget about the relationship between myself and any actress when working with her.

Sometimes actors' mistakes give me ideas I can use, because mistakes are always sincere, absolutely sincere.

My films always leave me unsatisfied, since I've always worked under fairly disastrous conditions economically.

I've always dreamed of getting to know the women of other countries better. When I was a boy, I remember, I used to get angry at the thought that I did not know German or American or Swedish women.

Another reason for switching to color is world television. In a few years, it will all be in color, and you can't compete against that with black-and-white films.

The greatest artist does not have any conceptWhich a single piece of marble does not itself containWithin its excess, though onlyA hand that obeys the intellect can discover it.

As when, O lady mine, With chiselled touchThe stone unhewn and coldBecomes a living mould, The more the marble wastes, The more the statue grows.

AS YOU GIVE OUT SO SHALL YOU RECEIVE.

He had never believed that spirituality had to be anemic or aesthetic.

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

Do not blame anyone if at last you don’t succeed because, your brain is solely responsible for this since this is where every seed of resolution will germinate.