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Government Lasts As Long As The Under-taxed Can Defend Themselves Against The Over-taxed.

-Bernard Berenson

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Government Lasts As Long

Bernard Berenson

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Government Lasts As Long As The Under-taxed Can Defend Themselves Against The Over-taxed.

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I Would Willingly Stand At Street Corners, Hat In Hand, Begging Passerby To Drop Their Unused Minutes Into It.

One Can Repent Even Of Having Repented.

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.

Literature In Its Most Comprehensive Sense Is The Autobiography Of Humanity.

Life Has Taught Me That It Is Not For Our Faults That We Are Disliked And Even Hated, But For Our Qualities.

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Consistency Requires You To Be As Ignorant Today As You Were A Year Ago.

No Artifact Is A Work Of Art If It Does Not Help To Humanize Us. Without Art...our World Would Have Remained A Jungle.

You Can Parody And Make Fun Of Almost Anything, But That Does Not Turn The Universe Into A Caricature.

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.

Between Truth And The Search For It, I Choose The Second.

Boast Is Always A Cry Of Despair, Except In The Young It Is A Cry Of Hope.

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.

The Ultimate Justification Of The Work Of Art Is To Help The Spectator To Become A Work Of Art Himself.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Who Will Free Me From Hurry, Flurry, The Feeling Of A Crowd Pushing Behind Me, Of Being Hustled And Crushed? 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. 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.

[describing His House:] It Is A Library With Living Rooms Attached.

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Government Lasts As Long As The Under-taxed Can Defend Themselves Against The Over-taxed.

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.

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