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Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.

Bernard Berenson

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

Appreciate Art Enjoy Value Wonder
I would willingly stand at street corners, hat in hand, begging passerby to drop their unused minutes into it.
BERNARD BERENSON

Hands Life Minute Passerby Time Unused
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
The average European does not seem to feel free until he succeeds in enslaving and oppressing others.
BERNARD BERENSON

Average Country Feel Oppressing
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
Government is the art of the momentary feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.
BERNARD BERENSON

Art Government Momentary
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
Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.
BERNARD BERENSON

Comparison History Truth
Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.
BERNARD BERENSON

Humanity Literature Writing
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
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
In figure painting, the type of all painting, I have endeavoured to set forth that the principal if not sole source of life enchantments are Tactile Values, Movement and Space Composition.
BERNARD BERENSON

Enchantment Movement Painting Source Space
Life has taught me that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our qualities.
BERNARD BERENSON

Life Quality Taught
German is of stone, limestone, pudding stone, marble, granite even, and so to a considerable degree is English, whereas French is bronze and gives out a metallic resonance with tones that neither German nor English tolerate.
BERNARD BERENSON

Country Degrees Giving Language Stones
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
When everything else physical and mental seems to diminish, the appreciation of beauty is on the increase.
BERNARD BERENSON

Appreciate Appreciation Beauty
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
You can parody and make fun of almost anything, but that does not turn the universe into a caricature.
BERNARD BERENSON

Caricature Doe Fun Parody
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
BERNARD BERENSON

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

Genius Reaction Training
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
[Describing his house:] It is a library with living rooms attached.
BERNARD BERENSON

House Library Rooms
Taste begins when appetite is satisfied.
BERNARD BERENSON

Appetite Satisfied Taste
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
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
Government lasts as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.
BERNARD BERENSON

Government Long Taxation

Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.

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Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.

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Popular Authors

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