The artist, no less than the writer, needs a vocabulary before he can embark on a “copy” of reality.

The artist gives the beholder increasingly ‘more to do,’ he draws him into the magic circle of creation and allows him to experience something of the thrill of ‘making’ which had once been the privilege of the artist.

Later in his life Gautama told the story of his decision in a sermon: ‘And so it came about that, in the full freshness and enjoyment of my youth, in glowing health, my hair still black, and against the wishes of my weeping and imploring elders, I shaved my head and beard, dressed in coarse robes, and forsook the shelter of my home.

The more we become aware of the enormous pull in man to repeat what he has learned, the greater will be our admiration for those exceptional beings who could break this spell and make a significant advance on which others could build.

Think of it like this. If you are sad because you can’t have something you want – maybe a book or a toy – you can do one of two things: you can do your best to get it, or you can stop wanting it. Either way, if you succeed, you won’t be sad any more.

One of Russia’s tsars, around 1580, was known as Ivan the Terrible, and rightly so. Beside him Nero was mild.

It’s bad idea to try to prevent people from knowing their own history. If you want to do anything new you must first make sure you know what people have tried before.

And it is because they seem so natural that they are so beautiful.

At first there’s nothing to see, but you feel a sort of weariness that tells you something is in the air.

The history of the world is, sadly, not a pretty poem. It offers little variety, and it is nearly always the unpleasant things that are repeated, over and over again.