Government is the art of the momentary feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.
BERNARD BERENSONOne can repent even of having repented.
More Bernard Berenson Quotes
-
-
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?
BERNARD BERENSON -
I never felt that there was anything enviable in youth. I cannot recall that any of us, as youths, admired our condition to excess or had a desire to prolong it.
BERNARD BERENSON -
Life has taught me that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our qualities.
BERNARD BERENSON -
You can parody and make fun of almost anything, but that does not turn the universe into a caricature.
BERNARD BERENSON -
Who will free me from hurry, flurry, the feeling of a crowd pushing behind me, of being hustled and crushed?
BERNARD BERENSON -
There was time for work, for play, for love, the confidence that if a task was not done at the appointed time, I easily could fit it into another hour. I used to take leisure for granted, as I did time itself.
BERNARD BERENSON -
One can repent even of having repented.
BERNARD BERENSON -
No artifact is a work of art if it does not help to humanize us. Without art…our world would have remained a jungle.
BERNARD BERENSON -
Miracles happen to those who believe in them.
BERNARD BERENSON -
There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and man’s reason has never learnt to separate them.
BERNARD BERENSON -
How can I regain even for a minute the feeling of ample leisure I had during my early, my creative years? Then I seldom felt fussed, or hurried.
BERNARD BERENSON -
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.
BERNARD BERENSON -
A complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the oneself that there is no self left to die.
BERNARD BERENSON -
[Describing his house:] It is a library with living rooms attached.
BERNARD BERENSON -
When everything else physical and mental seems to diminish, the appreciation of beauty is on the increase.
BERNARD BERENSON