I came to feel that a man who had never ... tried to reach a compromise and never had to make a ruthless decision, could not have much knowledge of the day to day problems of politics

At the time I knew nothing about politics and scarcely listened. Later on, when I had spent some time on the perimeter of public life, I came to feel that a man who had never sat on a committee, never bargained with an opponent, never tried to reach a compromise and never had to make a ruthless decision, could not have much knowledge of the day to day problems of politics; and many of his [Berenson's] judgements on English politics were grotesquely wrong.

K. Clark, Another part of the wood (1974), 153