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From childhood on I have had the dream of life lived as a sacrament… the dream implied taking life ritually as something holy.

Bernard Berenson

Genius is the capacity for productive reaction against one’s training.
BERNARD BERENSON

Genius Reaction Training
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

Art Jungle Our Remained World
I am only a picture-taster, the way others are wine-or tea-tasters.
BERNARD BERENSON

Taster Tea Way Wine
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

Age Desire Excess
Taste begins when appetite is satisfied.
BERNARD BERENSON

Appetite Satisfied Taste
Not what man knows but what man feels, concerns art. All else is science.
BERNARD BERENSON

Art Concern Men
The ultimate justification of the work of art is to help the spectator to become a work of art himself.
BERNARD BERENSON

Art Helping Justification
When everything else physical and mental seems to diminish, the appreciation of beauty is on the increase.
BERNARD BERENSON

Appreciate Appreciation Beauty
Who will free me from hurry, flurry, the feeling of a crowd pushing behind me, of being hustled and crushed?
BERNARD BERENSON

Creative Feeling Free Play Years
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

During Early Fussed Hurried Minute
Miracles happen to those who believe in them. Otherwise why does not the Virgin Mary appear to Lamaists, Mohammedans, or Hindus who have never heard of her.
BERNARD BERENSON

Appear Believe Fear Mary Prayer
One can repent even of having repented.
BERNARD BERENSON

Even Happen One Repent
Psychoanalysts are not occupied with the minds of their patients; they do not believe in the mind but in a cerebral intestine.
BERNARD BERENSON

Believe Intestine Mind Patient
Art is mind and heart and touch as much and more than it is mere instrument, technique – without which however it cannot exist at all.
BERNARD BERENSON

Art Instrument Mind Technique
Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.
BERNARD BERENSON

Comparison History Truth
The average European does not seem to feel free until he succeeds in enslaving and oppressing others.
BERNARD BERENSON

Average Country Feel Oppressing
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

Enemy Greater Interest Passion People
Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.
BERNARD BERENSON

Humanity Literature Writing
We usually meet all of our relatives only at funerals where somebody always observes: “Too bad we can’t get together more often”.
BERNARD BERENSON

Funeral Get Together
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

Aging Die May Self
I would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.
BERNARD BERENSON

Carpe Die Hands Time
Government lasts as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.
BERNARD BERENSON

Government Long Taxation
The artist, depicting man disdainful of the storm and stress of life, is no less reconciling and healing than the poet who, while endowing Nature and Humanity, rejoices in its measureless superiority to human passions and human sorrows.
BERNARD BERENSON

Healing Passion Sorrow Stress
[Describing his house:] It is a library with living rooms attached.
BERNARD BERENSON

House Library Rooms
Boast is always a cry of despair, except in the young it is a cry of hope.
BERNARD BERENSON

Boast Cry Despair Hope
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

Destiny Fate Men
It makes me happy to encounter goodness, love of work, humane intelligence, and people no matter at what kind of job, be it ever so humble, or ever so exalted, who do it well and con amore.
BERNARD BERENSON

Happiness Humble Intelligence Jobs

From childhood on I have had the dream of life lived as a sacrament… the dream implied taking life ritually as something holy.

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From childhood on I have had the dream of life lived as a sacrament… the dream implied taking life ritually as something holy.

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Popular Authors

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