Government lasts as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.
—Bernard Berenson
Topics: Taxation, Taxes
Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.
—Bernard Berenson
Topics: Truth
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
—Bernard Berenson
Topics: Consistency, Action, Change
Life has taught me that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our qualities.
—Bernard Berenson
Topics: Life and Living
I wish I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.
—Bernard Berenson
Topics: Trust, Waste, Time Management, Time, Value of Time, Excess, Carpe-diem
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
Topics: Miracles, Belief
I wonder whether art has a higher function than to make me feel, appreciate, and enjoy natural objects for their art value. So, as 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 vigor of spring as well as an infinite variety of color that no artifact I have seen in the last 60 years can rival.
—Bernard Berenson
Topics: Art
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
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Russell Lynes American Art Historian
Leo Rosten American Humorist
Ayn Rand Russian-born American Novelist
Igor Stravinsky Russian-born American Composer
Vladimir Nabokov Russian-born American Novelist
Vladimir Horowitz Russian-born American Pianist
Isaac Asimov American Novelist, Critic, Popular Scientist
George Lois American Art Director
David Ben-Gurion Russian-born Israeli Head of State
Daniel J. Boorstin American Historian