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Government is the art of the momentary feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.

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

Appointed Confidence Leisure Use
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
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
Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.
BERNARD BERENSON

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

Genius Reaction Training
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

Government is the art of the momentary feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.

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Government is the art of the momentary feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.

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Popular Authors

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