Our universe cannot even be stated symbolically. And this touches us all more directly than one might suppose. For example, artists, who have been very little influenced by social systems, have always responded instinctively to latent assumptions about the shape of the universe. The incomprehensibility of our new cosmos seems to me, ultimately, to be the reason for the chaos of modern art.

We can hardly imagine a state of mind in which all material objects were regarded as symbols of spirtual truths or episodes in sacred history. Yet, unless we make this effort of imagination, Medieval art is largely incomprehensible.

Those who wish, in the interest of morality, to reduce Leonardo, that inexhaustible source of creative power, to a neutral or sexless agency, have a strange idea of doing service to his reputation.

Over and above the political, economic, sociological, and international implications of racial prejudices, their major significance is that they place unnecessary burdens upon human beings.

It is often said that Leonardo drew so well because he knew about things; it is truer to say that he knew about things because he drew so well.

No nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even if it be only the faintest shadow - and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals.

A racist system inevitably destroys and damages human beings; it brutalizes and dehumanizes them, blacks and whites alike.