“Great movements in the arts, like revolutions, don’t last more than about fifteen years. After that the flame dies down and people prefer a cozy glow.” Ibid., 120.

“The convention by which the great events in biblical or secular history could be enacted only by magnificent physical specimens, handsome and well-groomed, went on for a long time — till the middle of the nineteenth century. Only a very few artists — perhaps only Rembrandt and Caravaggio in the first rank — were independent enough to stand against it. And I think that this convention, which as an element in the so-called grand manner, became a deadening influence on the European mind. It deadened our sense of truth, even our sense of moral responsibility ; and led, as we now see, to a hideous reaction.” Ibid., 133.

“Sit we upon the highest throne in the world, yet sit we upon our own tail.” Montaigne, quoted ibid., 163

“The stabilising, comprehensive religions of the world, the religions which penetrate to every part of a man’s being — in Egypt, India or China — gave the female principle of creation at least as much importance as the male, and wouldn’t have taken seriously a philosophy that failed to include them both. These were all what H. G. Wells called communities of obedience. The aggressive, nomadic societies — what he called communities of will — Israel, Islam, the Protestant North, conceived their gods as male. It’s a curious fact that the all-male religions have produced no religious imagery — in most cases have positively forbidden it. The great religious art of the world is deeply ‘involved with the female principle. Of course, the ordinary Catholic who prayed to the Virgin was not conscious of any of this; nor was he or she interested in the really baffling theological problems presented by the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He simply knew that the heretics wanted to deprive him of that sweet, compassionate, approachable being who would intercede for him, as his mother might have interceded with a hard master.” Ibid., 177.

“As a rule it is the act of confession that matters, not the attempted cure.” Ibid., 177.

“The sense of grandeur is no doubt a human instinct, but, carried too far, it becomes inhuman. 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.” Ibid., 192