True Art Is Made Noble And Religious

If It Be True That Any Beautiful Thing Raises The Pure And Just Desire Of Man From Earth To God, The Eternal Fount Of All, Such I Believe My Love.

The Marble Not Yet Carved Can Hold The Form Of Every Thought The Greatest Artist Has.

The Best Artist Has That Thought Alone Which Is Contained Within The Marble Shell; The Sculptor's Hand Can Only Break The Spell To Free The Figures Slumbering In The Stone.

Painting And Sculpture, Labour And Good Faith, Have Been My Ruin And I Continually Go From Bad To Worse. Better It Would Have Been For Me If I Had Set Myself To Making Matches In My Youth. I Should Not Be In Such Distress Of Mind.

Led By Long Years To My Last Hours, Too Late, O World, I Know Your Joys For What They Are. You Promise A Peace Which Is Not Yours To Give And The Repose That Dies Before It Is Born. The Years Of Fear And Shame To Which Heaven Now Set A Term, Renew Nothing In Me But The Old Sweet Error In Which, Living Overlong A Man Kills His Soul With No Gain To His Body. I Say And I Know Having Put It To The Proof, That He Has The Better Part In Heaven Whose Death Falls Nearest His Birth.