Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.
Interpretation
Understand the intentions behind someone's words rather than just their literal meaning.
This quote emphasizes the importance of discerning the true intentions and emotions behind the words people say, suggesting that effective communication comes from understanding the heart and feelings of others rather than merely focusing on the surface-level meaning. Michelangelo implies that good intentions can often be misinterpreted if one only looks at the words used, urging us to look deeper for genuine understanding.
In practice
In a discussion on emotional intelligence, this quote can highlight the importance of empathy.
The art of creation lies in the gift of perceiving the particular and generalizing it, thus creating the particular again. It is therefore a powerful transforming force and a generator of creative solutions in relation to a given problem.
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.
Art lives on constraint and dies of freedom.
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.
Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.
There is an angel imprisoned in it and I must set it free.
It's awfully important to win with humility. It's also important to lose. I hate to lose worse than anyone, but if you never lose you won't know how to act. If you lose with humility, then you can come back.
It's funny: when people always talk about the importance of role models, I used to think that was so exaggerated, but as I get older, I start to realize I don't feel that way so much anymore. If you see somebody like you who's doing something, an older version of what you are, it does make you feel like it's more possible.
Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak. Probably so we can think twice.
Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.
The greatest enemy of good thinking is busyness.
Far more than any other power, imagination is what sets human beings apart from every other species on earth.
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