The Cathedrals were built to the glory of God; New York was built to the glory of Mammon.

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.

You have no idea what portrait painters suffer from the vanity of their sitters.

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.

To hurry through the rise and fall of a fine, full sentence is like defying the role of time in human life.

Almost all great painters in old age arrive at the same kind of broad, simplified style, as if they wanted to summarise the whole of their experience in a few strokes and blobs of colour.

Changes in the structure of society are not brought about solely by massive engines of doctrine. The first flash of insight which persuades human beings to change their basic assumptions is usually contained in a few phrases.