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I am only a picture-taster, the way others are wine-or tea-tasters.

Bernard Berenson

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
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

Appointed Confidence Leisure Use
Taste begins when appetite is satisfied.
BERNARD BERENSON

Appetite Satisfied Taste
When everything else physical and mental seems to diminish, the appreciation of beauty is on the increase.
BERNARD BERENSON

Appreciate Appreciation Beauty
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

Deliberately Home Lying Myself
[Describing his house:] It is a library with living rooms attached.
BERNARD BERENSON

House Library Rooms
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
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
Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.
BERNARD BERENSON

Comparison History Truth
Government lasts as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.
BERNARD BERENSON

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

Genius Reaction Training
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
One can repent even of having repented.
BERNARD BERENSON

Even Happen One Repent
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
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 am only a picture-taster, the way others are wine-or tea-tasters.

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I am only a picture-taster, the way others are wine-or tea-tasters.

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