Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.
Interpretation
Understand the intentions behind someone's words rather than just their literal meaning.
This quote emphasizes the importance of discerning the true intentions and emotions behind the words people say, suggesting that effective communication comes from understanding the heart and feelings of others rather than merely focusing on the surface-level meaning. Michelangelo implies that good intentions can often be misinterpreted if one only looks at the words used, urging us to look deeper for genuine understanding.
In practice
In a discussion on emotional intelligence, this quote can highlight the importance of empathy.
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.
You must not talk about 'ain't and can't' when you speak of this great wonderful world round you, of which the wisest man knows only the very smallest corner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton said, only a child picking up pebbles on the shore of a boundless ocean.
Diverse groups of problem solvers outperformed the groups of the best individuals at solving complex problems. The reason: the diverse groups got stuck less often than the smart individuals, who tended to think similarly.
Dripping water hollows out a stone
It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.
Money is like manure, its only good if you spread it around.
Your Heavenly Father knows that you will make mistakes. He knows that you will stumble-perhaps many times. This saddens Him, but He loves you. He does not wish to break your spirit. On the contrary, He desires that you rise up and become the person you were designed to be.
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