Nature broke the mould
In which she cast him.
Natura il fece, e poi roppe la stampa.
Original text (Italian)
Notes from Wikiquote
Compare: "I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could
So fair a creature make." A Praise of his Lady, in Tottel's Miscellany (1557). Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey wrote similar lines, in A Praise of his Love (before 1547). Compare also: "Sighing that Nature formed but one such man,
And broke the die—in moulding Sheridan." Lord Byron, Monody on the Death of the Rt. Hon. R. B. Sheridan, line 117. As reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922).
Variants
Nature made him, and then broke the mould.