No thought is born in me that does not bear the image of death.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the idea that the contemplation of death influences all thoughts and creations.
Michelangelo suggests that the awareness of mortality deeply shapes the human experience and artistic expression. By recognizing death's inevitability, one can infuse meaning into their thoughts and works, leading to a profound appreciation for life and creativity.
In practice
During a discussion about the motivations behind art, one might quote this to highlight the influence of mortality.
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.
The more administrative machinery we construct, be it the most modern, the less place there is for the Spirit, the less place there is for the Lord, and the less freedom there is. It is my opinion that we ought to begin an unsparing examination of conscience on this point at all levels in the Church.
I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.
Fifty years after half a million gypsies were exterminated in the Second World War - thousands of them in Auschwitz - we're again preparing the mass killing of this minority.
A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?" Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.
Last of all came the cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred contentedly throughout Major's speech without listening to a word of what he was saying.
Let me have my tax money go for my protection and not for my prosecution. Let my tax money go for the protection of me. Protect my home, protect my streets, protect my car, protect my life, protect my property...worry about becoming a human being and not about how you can prevent others from enjoying their lives because of your own inability to adjust to life.
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