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.

However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man.

After four tortured years, more than 400 over life-sized figures, I felt as old and as weary as Jeremiah. I was only 37, yet friends did not recognize the old man I had become.

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.

Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man.

The greatest risk to man is not that he aims to high and misses, but that he aims to low and hits.

Heaven-born, the soul a heavenward course must hold; beyond the world she soars; the wise man, I affirm, can find no rest in that which perishes, nor will he lend his heart to ought that doth time depend