“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
— Michelangelo Buonarroti
Attributed to Michelangelo, widely recorded in biographies since Vasari's 'Lives of the Artists' (1550). Reflects his belief that sculpting was liberation, not creation.
I spent four years on scaffolding I built myself, painting the Sistine ceiling on my back. Paint dripped into my eyes. My spine curved. My neck locked. When I came down in 1512, I could not read a letter without holding it above my head because my body had forgotten how to look down. People walked in, looked up, and called it a miracle. Nobody asked what it cost. That is the trick of mastery: it looks effortless because the effort is invisible. Whatever you are building, the hours count.