Nature Did All Things Well

If There Is Some Good In Me, It Is Because I Was Born In The Subtle Atmosphere Of Your Country Of Arezzo. Along With The Milk Of My Nurse I Received The Knack Of Handling Chisel And Hammer, With Which I Make My Figures.

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.

It Is Well With Me Only When I Have A Chisel In My Hand.

The Best Of Artists Hath No Thought To Show Which The Rough Stone In Its Superfluous Shell Doth Not Include; To Break The Marble Spell Is All The Hand That Serves The Brain Can Do.

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.