The eager or dutiful persons who subject themselves to these tidal waves of the classics and the moderns find everything wonderful in an absent-minded way. The wonder washes over them rather than into them, and one of its effects is… — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
To watch a football game is to be in a prolonged neurotic doubt as to what you're seeing. It's more like an emergency happening at a distance than a game. I don't wonder the spectators take to drink. — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
It seems a long time since the morning mail could be called correspondence. — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
The reason why research is like sculpting from memory is that in neither is there a concrete visible subject to copy directly. The subject… — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
Everybody keeps calling for Excellence - excellence not just in schooling, throughout society. But as soon as somebody or something stands out as Excellent,… — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in all things we… — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
The ascetic is often a sensualist who has reached the limit of his capacity. — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole. — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years. — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
The mind tends to run along the groove of one's intention and overlook the actual expression. — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
Vanity is a static thing. It puts it faith in what it has, and is easily wounded. Pride is active, and satisfied only with… — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
By the time I was 9, I had the conviction that everybody in the world was an artist except plumbers or people who delivered groceries. — Jacques Barzun Copy Share Image
