Only we must not wake her; for he who fashioned her has told us that her sleep of stone is great good fortune.

Both of these women are large and brawny, unlike the Fates of Pheidias, in their muscular maturity.

The burden of Michelangelo's thought was too tremendous to be borne by virginal and graceful beings.

He had to make women no less capable of suffering, no less world-wearied, than his country.
"Standing before these statues, we do not cry, How beautiful! We murmur, How terrible, how grand! Yet, after long gazing, we find them gifted with beauty beyond grace.

In each of them there is a palpitating thought, torn from the artist's soul and crystallised in marble.