"Good taste is not essential, and it is often a brake on energy."

-Fairfield Porter, Art in its Own Terms

"A magnificent temple is a laudable monument of national taste and religion, and the enthusiast who entered the dome of St. Sophia, might be tempted to suppose that it was the residence, or even the workmanship of the Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how insignificant is the labour, if it be compared with the formation of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of the temple!"

-Sir Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall