We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. Kenneth Clark
You have no idea what portrait painters suffer from the vanity of their sitters. Kenneth Clark
Energy is eternal delight; and from the earliest times human beings have tried to imprison it in some durable hieroglyphic. It is perhaps the first of all the subjects of art. Kenneth Clark
The great achievement of the Catholic Church lay in harmonizing, civilizing the deepest impulses of ordinary, ignorant people. Kenneth Clark
Opera, next to Gothic architecture, is one of the strangest inventions of Western man. It could not have been foreseen by any logical process. Kenneth Clark
All great civilizations, in their early stages, are based on success in war. Kenneth Clark
People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilization. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilization; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater. Kenneth Clark