She had not reckoned with the sheer force of routine in a rich nineteenth-century household

Laura did not achieve the new way of living with her baby which she had wished. She had not reckoned with the sheer force of routine in a rich nineteenth-century household. Had she decided to live by herself with her illegitimate child—and this would have meant becoming a bohemian—she might have succeeded. As it was, in her mother’s house in Paris, her plans were defeated by nurse-maids, chambermaids, the housekeeper, her mother’s doctor. It was not possible for her to be with the child for more than a couple of hours a day. It was not possible for her to occupy herself with all the daily chores connected with looking after him—washing linen, ironing, cleaning the nursery, preparing his food, etc.; there were servants to do such jobs. The most that she could achieve was bathing him in the late afternoon under the eyes of the nurse and the maid who brought up the hot water.

J. Berger, G (1974), 27

We are also asking him to witness our dying

The doctor is the familiar of death. When we call for a doctor, we are asking him to cure us and t relieve our suffering, but, if he cannot cure us, we are also asking him to witness our dying. The value of the witness is that he has seen so many others die. (This, rather than the prayers and last rites, was also the real value which the priest once had.)

J. Berger, A fortunate man (1967; 2016 edition), 70

Third-rate works surround an outstanding work without any recognition of what fundamentally differentiates them

Visitors to art museums are often overwhelmed by the number of works on display, and by what they take to be their cupable inability to concentrate on more than a few if these works. In fact such a reaction is reasonable. Art history has totally failed to  come to terms with the problem of the relationship between the outstanding work and the average work of the European tradition. The notion of genius is not in itself an adequate answer. Consequently the confusion remains on the walls of the galleries. Third-rate works surround an outstanding work without any recognition - let alone explanation - of what fundamentally differentiates them. 

J. Berger, Ways of seeing (1972), 88