If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that both life and death are gifts from the same source, and we should accept death as a natural part of existence.
Michelangelo's quote reflects on the intertwined nature of life and death, advocating for a sense of acceptance towards both. It implies that if one has found joy and satisfaction in life, one should not resist or fear death, as it is an inevitable part of the human experience and emerges from the same divine authority that grants us life. This perspective encourages a harmonious view of existence, where both life and death are celebrated as expressions of a greater force.
In practice
In a eulogy, one might reference this quote to provide comfort to mourners.
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.
Security is elusive. It's impossible. We all die. We all get old. We all get sick. People leave us. People change us. Nothing is secure.
Experience teaches that for most people there is a limit beyond which their constitution cannot comply with the demands of civilization. All who wish to reach a higher standard than their constitution will allow, fall victims to neurosis. It would have been better for them if they could have remained less "perfect".
From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people.
Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.
The terror of the atom age is not the violence of the new power but the speed of man's adjustment to it, the speed of his acceptance.
I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.