Quotes by Bernard Berenson

“A complete life may be one ending in so full identification with the non-self that there is no self to die.”

“Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.”

“When everything else physical and mental seems to diminish, the appreciation of beauty is on the increase.”

“The institution that had the greatest effect on Berenson's education was the Boston public library, the first in the country that allowed people to take books home to read them.”

“I wonder whether Art has a higher function than to make me feel appreciate and enjoy natural objects for their art value?”

“As I got warmed up and felt perfectly at home in talk I heard myself boasting lying exaggerating. Oh not deliberately far from it. It would be unconvivial and dull to stop and arrest the flow...”

“Enemies could become the best companions. Companionship is based on a common interest and the greater the interest the closer the companionship. What makes enemies of people if not the eagerness ...”

“We define genius as the capacity for productive reaction against one's training.”

“Governments last as long as the undertaxed can defend themselves against the overtaxed.”

“I wish I could stand on a busy corner hat in hand and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.”

“A complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the not-self that there is no self left to die.”

“Governments last as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.”

“I wonder whether Art has a higher function than to make me feel appreciate and enjoy natural objects for their art value?”

“As I got warmed up and felt perfectly at home in talk I heard myself boasting lying exaggerating. Oh not deliberately far from it. It would be unconvivial and dull to stop and arrest the flow of ta...”

“I wish I could stand on a busy corner hat in hand and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.”

“Florentine painting between Giotto and Michelangelo contains the names of such artists as Orcagna, Masaccio, Fra Filippo, Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio, Leonardo, and Botticelli. ... Forget that they were...”

“Can any mortal portray himself with words, as perhaps he can with chalk or paint? ... A gifted verbal artist may convey some coherent idea of a person he attempts to portray, but not likely an obje...”

“Taste begins when appetite is satisfied.”