A Quote by Joseph Addison

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul. — © Joseph Addison
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.
A statue lies hid in a block of marble, and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone; the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero,--the wise, the good, or the great man,--very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light.
The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.
Every piece of marble has a statue in it waiting to be released by a person of sufficient skill to chip away the unnecessary parts. Just as the sculptor is to the marble, so is education to the soul. It releases it. For only educated people are free people. You cannot create a statue by smashing the marble with a hammer, and you cannot by the force of arms release the spirit or the soul of people.
The block of marble is not the sculptor, and doesn't see that he's about to become a masterpiece... We're the block of marble and God is the sculptor, and the chisel is.... everything.
We are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture... We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it into gravel, we can shape it into glory.
Guido the plumber and Michelangelo obtained their marble from the same quarry, but what each saw in the marble made the difference between a nobleman's sink and a brilliant sculpture.
We are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture. We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it to gravel, we can shape it into glory. Examples from every other life are left for us to see, lifeworks finished and unfinished, guiding and warning. Near the end our sculpture is nearly finished, and we can smooth and polish what we started years before. We can make our progress then, but to do it we must see past the appearances of age.
Alexandros of Antioch took a block of marble and chiseled away from it everything that was not his masterpiece, the Venus de Milo. If you will chisel away one fault from your character every day, you may discover - a) that you're actually a statue of Margaret Thatcher. b) that you're still just a block of marble. c) that there are pigeon droppings on your shoes. d) that you, too, are a hidden masterpiece.
If Michaelangelo made a marble sculpture of a defensive end it would look like Mario Williams.
When people go to museums and see a sculpture made out of marble, they appreciate it but it's very doubtful that they will go home and have a slab of marble they can chip away at, but people do have LEGO. I don't have any LEGO specially made for me, all of the shapes, sizes and colours I use are available in stores so that if someone is inspired to create on their own, they can go and buy the very same bricks.
I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.
Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.
A piece of sculpture has to be more than a block of wood.
The thing I like most in my kitchen is my marble counters. Everybody said not to use marble because it's fragile, it stains, it cracks, and it doesn't remain beautiful. But I love marble.
The work of art is already within the block of marble. I just chop off whatever isn't needed.
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