I wonder if a single thought that has helped forward the human spirit has ever been conceived or written down in an enormous room: except, perhaps, in the reading room of the British Museum.

I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves.

The difference between what we see and a sheet of white paper with a few thin lines on it is very great. Yet this abstraction is one which we seem to have adopted almost instinctively at an early stage in our development, not only in Neolithic graffiti but in early Egyptian drawings. And in spite of its abstract character, the outline is responsive to the least tremor of sensibility.

Devotion to the facts will always give the pleasures of recognition; adherence to the rules of design, the pleasures of order and certainty.

Heroes do not easily tolerate the company of other heroes.

People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater.

This became Delacroix 's theme: that the achievements of the spirit all that a great library contained were the result of a state of society so delicately balanced that at the least touch they would be crushed beneath an avalanche of pent-up animal forces.