Bernard Berenson
Bernard Berenson
Bernard Berensonwas an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book The Italian Painters of the Renaissance was an international success...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth26 June 1865
CountryUnited States of America
desire excess youth
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.
spring flower eye
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.
history comparison
Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.
government long taxation
Government lasts as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.
self may aging
A complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the oneself that there is no self left to die.
fate men two
There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and man's reason has never learned to separate them.
encouragement hands calumny-is
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.
summer morning air
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.
repent
One can repent even of having repented.
years play creative
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.
taste appetite satisfied
Taste begins when appetite is satisfied.
hope despair cry
Boast is always a cry of despair, except in the young it is a cry of hope.
passion people enemy
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?
space movement enchantment
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.