Jacques Barzun

Regarding the idea of race, .. no agreement seems to exist about what race means. Race seems to embody a fact as…

— Jacques Barzun

Seeing clearly within himself and always able to dodge around the ends of any position, including his own, Shaw assumed from the…

— Jacques Barzun

Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are…

— Jacques Barzun

“... in fact any good mind properly taught can think like Euclid and like Walt Whitman. The Renaissance, as we saw, was…

— Jacques Barzun

The history of creation is but a succession of battles between amateurs of genius-inspired heretics- and orthodox professionals.

— Jacques Barzun

The reason teaching has to go on is that children are not born human; they are made so.

— Jacques Barzun

I can only think that the book is read because it deals with the difficulties of schooling, which do not change. Please…

— Jacques Barzun

One great aim of revision is to cut out. In the exuberance of composition it is natural to throw in - as…

— Jacques Barzun

In any assembly the simplest way to stop transacting business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principal.

— Jacques Barzun

Grab a pen and put down some words - your name even - and a title: something to see, to revise, to…

— Jacques Barzun

In any assembly the simplest way to stop transacting business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principle.

— Jacques Barzun

“We are thus led to ask what the writer looks for and how he trains himself to look for it. The answer…

— Jacques Barzun

The eager or dutiful persons who subject themselves to these tidal waves of the classics and the moderns find everything wonderful in…

— Jacques Barzun

In ordinary speech the words perception and sensation tend to be used interchangeably, but the psychologist distinguishes. Sensations are the items of…

— Jacques Barzun

The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn…

— Jacques Barzun

After being boxed in by man and his constructions in Europe and the East, the release into space is exhilarating. The horizon…

— Jacques Barzun

Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine.

— Jacques Barzun

A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative,…

— Jacques Barzun

[T]hat is the triumph of history - truth absolute is not at hand; the original with which to match the copy does…

— Jacques Barzun

Always old-fashioned

— Jacques Barzun

Since it is seldom clear whether intellectual activity denotes a superior mode of being or a vital deficiency, opinion swings between considering…

— Jacques Barzun

Finding oneself was a misnomer; a self is not found but made.

— Jacques Barzun

When plugged in, the least elaborate computer can be relied on to work to the fullest extent of its capacity. The greatest…

— Jacques Barzun

A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative,…

— Jacques Barzun

Out of man's mind in free play comes the creation Science. It renews itself, like the generations, thanks to an activity which…

— Jacques Barzun