1504, Michelangelo's sculpture David was unveiled in Florence. Among his famous works are Pieta (below) and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo along with Leonardo da Vinci are among the most crucial torch-bearers of the Renaissance... Rejecting the tenets of the Medieval Ages (Dark Ages), they postulated that earthly life and dignity of the human being take priority over the heavenly life and God. Pico della Mirandola has expressed it well in his "Oration on the Dignity of Man,"
"We have placed you at the world's center so that you may survey everything else in the world. We have made you neither of heavenly nor of earthly stuff, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with free choice and dignity, you may fashion yourself into whatever form you choose. To you is granted the power of degrading yourself into the lower forms of life, the beasts, and to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, the divine."here
Some of Michelangelo's quotes deserve to be placed here:
I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.
I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.
Genius is eternal patience.
Reading Michelangelo's biography is very instructive, especially with regard to what gigantic, almost inhuman efforts he put into painting the Sistine Chapel. That is not just hard work. It is a level of physical and mental exertion that is reached only through unimaginable passion and sacrifice...
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