Bernard Berenson Quotes

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Miracles happen to those who believe in them.

Bernard Berenson

Positive, Believe, Optimistic

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Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.

Bernard Berenson

Inspirational, Creativity, Ignorance

Bernard Berenson (1962). “The Bernard Berenson Treasury: A Selection from the Works, Unpublished Writings, Letters, Diaries, and Journals of the Most Celebrated Humanist and Art Historian of Our Times, 1887-1958”

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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

Bernard Berenson (1958). “Essays in Appreciation”

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Not what man knows but what man feels, concerns art. All else is science.

Bernard Berenson

Art, Men, Concern

Bernard Berenson (1968). “The Italian Painters of the Renaissance”

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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

Bernard Berenson (1962). “The Bernard Berenson Treasury: A Selection from the Works, Unpublished Writings, Letters, Diaries, and Journals of the Most Celebrated Humanist and Art Historian of Our Times, 1887-1958”

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Taste begins when appetite is satisfied.

Bernard Berenson

Taste, Appetite, Satisfied

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Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.

Bernard Berenson

Truth, History, Comparison

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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

Fate, Destiny, Men

"The world, the flesh & the devil" by Bernard Berenson, (p. 3), 1929.

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Art, in the widest sense of the word, is the instrument Hellenism has used and would use for that purpose. All the arts, poetry, music, ritual, the visual arts, the theatre, must work singly and together to create the most comprehensive art of all, a humanized society, and its masterpiece, the free man.

Bernard Berenson

Art, Men, Together

"Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts".

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Genius is the capacity for productive reaction against one's training.

Bernard Berenson

Training, Genius, Reactions

Bernard Berenson (1968). “Venetian and North Italian Schools”

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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

Self, May, Aging

Bernard Berenson (2013). “Sketch For A Self Portrait”, p.15, Read Books Ltd

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I would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.

Bernard Berenson

Time, Carpe Diem, Hands

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I walk in the garden, I look at the flowers and shrubs and trees and discover in them an exquisiteness of contour, a vitality of edge, or a vigour of spring, as well as an infinite variety of colour that no artefact I have seen in the last sixty years can rival...each day, as I look, I wonder where my eyes were yesterday.

Bernard Berenson

Spring, Flower, Eye

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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

Passion, People, Enemy

Bernard Berenson (1963). “Sunset and Twilight: From the Diaries of 1947-1958”, New York : Harcourt, Brace & World

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One can repent even of having repented.

Bernard Berenson

Repent

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It was a morning in early summer. A silver haze shimmered and trembled over the lime trees. The air was laden with their fragrance. The temperature was like a caress. I remember - I need not recall - that I climbed up a tree stump and felt suddenly immersed in Itness. I did not call it by that name. I had no need for words. It and I were one.

Bernard Berenson

Summer, Morning, Air

Bernard Berenson (2013). “Sketch For A Self Portrait”, p.14, Read Books Ltd

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

Bernard Berenson

Writing, Humanity, Literature

Bernard Berenson (1962). “The Bernard Berenson Treasury: A Selection from the Works, Unpublished Writings, Letters, Diaries, and Journals of the Most Celebrated Humanist and Art Historian of Our Times, 1887-1958”

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

Bernard Berenson

Art, Appreciate, Wonder

Bernard Berenson (2013). “Sketch For A Self Portrait”, p.105, Read Books Ltd

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International affairs will be placed on a better footing when it is understood that there is no way of punishing a people for the crimes of its rulers.

Bernard Berenson

People, Way, Affair

Bernard Berenson (1952). “Rumour and Reflection: 1941:1944”

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Government lasts as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.

Bernard Berenson

Government, Long, Taxation

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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, Jobs, Humble

Bernard Berenson (1963). “Sunset and Twilight: From the Diaries of 1947-1958”, New York : Harcourt, Brace & World

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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, Mind, Technique

Bernard Berenson (1962). “The Bernard Berenson Treasury: A Selection from the Works, Unpublished Writings, Letters, Diaries, and Journals of the Most Celebrated Humanist and Art Historian of Our Times, 1887-1958”

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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

Prayer, Fear, Believe

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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

Dream, Childhood, Fatherhood

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Pessimism like calumny is easy to do, and attracts immediate attention. The gossiper and the writer may find this out soon enough, and a little encouragement from the current mood will procure them successes that bring endless imitators in their trail. On the other hand saying good things about life in general and individuals in particular and making it interesting is a serious task which few can achieve with credit.

Bernard Berenson

Encouragement, Hands, Calumny Is

Bernard Berenson (1963). “Sunset and Twilight: From the Diaries of 1947-1958”, New York : Harcourt, Brace & World

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Born: June 26, 1865
Died: October 6, 1959
Occupation: Art critic
Cite this Page: Citation

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