I would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.
BERNARD BERENSONI would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.
BERNARD BERENSONEnemies 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 BERENSONThe ultimate justification of the work of art is to help the spectator to become a work of art himself.
BERNARD BERENSONWhen everything else physical and mental seems to diminish, the appreciation of beauty is on the increase.
BERNARD BERENSONMiracles 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 BERENSONWe usually meet all of our relatives only at funerals where somebody always observes: “Too bad we can’t get together more often”.
BERNARD BERENSONThe 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 BERENSONA complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the oneself that there is no self left to die.
BERNARD BERENSONGovernment is the art of the momentary feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.
BERNARD BERENSONBetween truth and the search for it, I choose the second.
BERNARD BERENSONIt 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 BERENSONNo artifact is a work of art if it does not help to humanize us. Without art…our world would have remained a jungle.
BERNARD BERENSONBoast is always a cry of despair, except in the young it is a cry of hope.
BERNARD BERENSONNot what man knows but what man feels, concerns art. All else is science.
BERNARD BERENSONThe average European does not seem to feel free until he succeeds in enslaving and oppressing others.
BERNARD BERENSONI am only a picture-taster, the way others are wine-or tea-tasters.
BERNARD BERENSON