If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age. – Jacques Barzun
In any assembly the simplest way to stop transacting business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principle. – Jacques Barzun
Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole. – Jacques Barzun
The test and the use of man’s education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind. – Jacques Barzun
Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game – and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams. – Jacques Barzun
It is only in the shadows, when some fresh wave, truly original, truly creative, breaks upon the shore, that there will be a rediscovery of the West. – Jacques Barzun
Varese, Apollinaire, Ezra Pound, Leger, Gleizes, Severini, Villon, Duchamp, Duchamp-Villon, Marie Laurencin, Cocteau and many others were to me household names in the literal sense – names of familiar figures around the house. – Jacques Barzun
Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice. – Jacques Barzun
The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers. – Jacques Barzun
I have always been – I think any student of history almost inevitably is – a cheerful pessimist. – Jacques Barzun
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
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
After being boxed in by man and his constructions in Europe and the East, the release into space is exhilarating. The horizon is a huge remote circle, and no hills intervene. – Jacques Barzun
Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions. – Jacques Barzun
Art distills sensation and embodies it with enhanced meaning in a memorable form – or else it is not art. – Jacques Barzun
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years. – Jacques Barzun
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
An artist has every right – one may even say a duty – to exhibit his productions as prominently as he can. – Jacques Barzun
If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real. – Jacques Barzun
