Lorenzo De' Medici Seeks Highly Skilled, Aesthetically

Painters Are Not In Any Way Unsociable Through Pride, But Either Because They Find Few Pursuits Equal To Painting, Or In Order Not To Corrupt Themselves With The Useless Conversation Of Idle People, And Debase The Intellect From The Lofty Imaginations In Which They Are Always Absorbed.

Led By Long Years To My Last Hours, Too Late, O World, I Know Your Joys For What They Are. You Promise A Peace Which Is Not Yours To Give And The Repose That Dies Before It Is Born. The Years Of Fear And Shame To Which Heaven Now Set A Term, Renew Nothing In Me But The Old Sweet Error In Which, Living Overlong A Man Kills His Soul With No Gain To His Body. I Say And I Know Having Put It To The Proof, That He Has The Better Part In Heaven Whose Death Falls Nearest His Birth.

As When, O Lady Mine, With Chiselled Touch, The Stone Unhewn And Cold, Becomes A Living Mould, The More The Marble Wastes, The More The Statue Grows.

Gazing On Beautiful Things Acts On My Soul.

The Greatest Danger For Most Of Us Is Not That Our Aim Is Too High And We Miss It, But That It Is Too Low And We Reach It.