Bernard Berenson Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 talk and speak only after carefully considering whether I was telling the truth.

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 the passion for the same thing?

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

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