Michelangelo Buonarroti: Working

Michelangelo Buonarroti was Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet. Explore interesting quotes on working.
Michelangelo Buonarroti: 54   quotes 28   likes

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

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Found attributed to Michelangelo in non-specialist publications as early as 1929 https://books.google.com/books?id=-0YhAQAAMAAJ&dq=If+people+knew+how+hard+I+had+to+work+to+gain+my+mastery%2C+it+would+not+seem+so+wonderful+at+all.&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=michelangelo, but no source is known. Not found in any known biography of Michelangelo.
Disputed

People

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

Michelangelo Buonarroti

On the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, as quoted in Speeches & Presentations Unzipped (2007) by Lori Rozakis, p. 71.
Earliest known citation is a Usenet post from August 2001 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.guitar.beginner/1Vdr9hO_g_g/grDd5GE99SEJ. No source is given. Possibly a variant of the preceding longer-established quote.
Disputed

“Your lordship, only worldly light in this age of ours, you can never be pleased with another man's work for there is no man who resembles you, nor one to equal you … It grieves me greatly that I cannot recapture my past, so as to longer be at your service. As it is, I can only offer you my future, which is short, for I am too old … That is all I have to say. Read my heart for "the quill cannot express good will."”

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Letter to Tommaso dei Cavalieri (1 January 1533).

Age , Light , Reading , Past