Jacques Barzun
teaching lost art regard tradition
“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
heart mind America baseball USA
“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
political correctness tolerance hatred
“Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred. ”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
pluralistic world universal church diversified human race
“Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
study important reading intellect power depndent
“no subject of study is more important than reading…all other intellectual powers depend on it.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
french mot juste word exact hard lazy
“The French call mot juste the word that exactly fits. Why is this word so hard to find? The reasons are many. First, we don't always know what we mean and are too lazy too find out.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
feature 20C culture educated bilingual
“It is a noteworthy feature of 20C culture that for the first time in over a thousand years its educated class is not expected to be at least bilingual.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
simple English mother tongue work
“Simple English is no one’s mother tongue. It has to be worked for.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
liberal conservative feet planted air mouth
“A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative, who has both feet firmly planted in his mouth.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
first principle point best word
“First Principle: Have a point and make it by means of the best word.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
mind renaissance poet engineerscience divided human mind
“... in fact any good mind properly taught can think like Euclid and like Walt Whitman. The Renaissance, as we saw, was full of such minds, equally competent as poet and as engineers. The modern notion of "the two cultures," incompatible under one skull, comes solely from the proliferation of specialties in science; but these also divide scientists into groups that do not understand one another, the cause being the sheer mass of detail and the diverse terminologies. In essence the human mind remains one, not 2 or 60 different organs.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
delve history hard work scapegoat
“To delve into history entails, besides the grievance of hard work, the danger that in the depths one may lose one’s scapegoats.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
mind groove intention expression
“The mind tends to run along the groove of one's intention and overlook the actual expression.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
education USA passion paradox degrade free charge work
“Education in the United States is a passion and a paradox. Millions want it, and commend it, and are busy about it. At the same time they degrade it by trying to get it free of charge and free of work.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
intellectual activity superior deficiency privilege handicap
“Since it is seldom clear whether intellectual activity denotes a superior mode of being or a vital deficiency, opinion swings between considering intellect a privilege and seeing it as a handicap”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
civilization stoge age wastepaper
“If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
bad writing scholarship published
“Bad writing, it is easily verified, has never kept scholarship from being published.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
old age profession
“Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
institutional self-reform rare conscience culture
“...institutional self-reform is rare; the conscience is willing, but the culture is rough.”
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
teaching fruit day work ivisible twenty years
"In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
truth subject teach student learn
"The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
test education pleasure exercise mind
"The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
music sentient being hope purpose emotion
"Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
finding oneself misnomer self made
"Finding oneself was a misnomer; a self is not found but made."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
clothing fashions impractical Tahiti
"Of course, clothing fashions have always been impractical, except in Tahiti."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
adaptive networks diagonal eliptical skip function
"Highly-adaptive, informal networks move diagonally and eliptically, skipping entire functions to get things done."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
science pervasive energy thought emotion faith fanatical
"Science is an all-pervasive energy, for it is at once a mode of thought, a source of strong emotion, and a faith as fanatical as any in history."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
university dean executive school department planetarium
"In a large university, there are as many deans and executive heads as there are schools and departments. Their relations to one another are intricate and periodic; in fact, "galaxy" is too loose a term: it is a planetarium of deans with the President of the University as a central sun. One can see eclipses, inner systems, and oppositions."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
science glorious entertainment
"Science is, in the best and strictest sense, glorious entertainment"
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
true knowledge convenient building brick violin distract meaning
"Of true knowledge at any time, a good part is merely convenient, necessary indeed to the worker, but not to an understanding of his subject: One can judge a building without knowing where to buy the bricks; one can understand a violin sonata without knowing how to score for the instrument. The work may in fact be better understood without a knowledge of the details of its manufacture, of attention to these tends to distract from meaning and effect."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
educated man passionate activity motionless pleasure
"The educated man had throughout the ages found a way to covert passionate activity into silent and motionless pleasure. He can sit still in a room and not perish."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
authority science strictness method mass explanation power
"For the educated, the authority of science rested on the strictness of its methods; for the mass, it rested on the powers of explanation."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
music object intangible ineffable inhaled spirit silence
"Music, not being made up of objects nor referring to objects, is intangible and ineffable; it can only be as it were inhaled by the spirit: the rest is silence."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
computer capacity reliable mind variability superior
"When plugged in, the least elaborate computer can be relied on to work to the fullest extent of its capacity. The greatest mind cannot be relied on for the simplest thing; its variability is its superiority."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
teaching children born human made
"The reason teaching has to go on is that children are not born human; they are made so."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
assembly stop principle
"In any assembly the simplest way to stop transacting business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principle."
― Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)