Bernard Berenson Quotes

Orthodoxy is the diehard of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget.

The 'Artful Tommy' will never change - and perhaps shouldn't.

There is nothing in the world more stubborn than a corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to pieces, but you cannot convince it.

Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.

He resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again.

Consistency frequently launches its devotees into obstinacy.

The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

Yes, I can be rigid and adamant about a point of view.

Some people when they get older are so firm in their beliefs that you'll never move them.

It is not possible to unknow what you do know - the result of that is fanaticism.

He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

People that are orthodox when they are young are in danger of being middle-aged all their lives.

Getting bogged down in old stories stops the flow of learning by censoring our perceptions, making us functionally deaf and blind to new information. Once the replay button gets pushed, we no longer form new ideas or conclusions - the old ones are so cozy.

The obstinate Man does not hold Opinions; they hold him.

Arguments have no chance against petrified training; they wear it as little as the waves wear a cliff.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

Some people have a mandate that you can't change.

You can't win some people over.

I always play the game a certain way, regardless of what guys say.

Donald Trump has proven to be the kind of person who you can't reason with and who you can't have a logical conversation with - and who I can't imagine having a heart-to-heart conversation thinking that I would change something specifically about this person.

Consistency is the defense of a small mind

Consistency is the quality of a stagnant mind.

It is the fixed that horrifies us, the fixed that assails us with the tremendous force of mindlessness. The fixed is a Mason jar,and we can't beat it open. ...The fixed is a world without fire--dead flint, dead tinder, and nowhere a spark. It is motion without direction, force without power, the aimless procession of caterpillars round the rim of a vase, and I hate it because at any moment I myself might step to that charmed and glistening thread.

Stupidity is an immovable object: you can't try to attack it wiithout being broken by it.

Obstinacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues--constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness--are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence; and in their excess all these virtues very easily fall into it.