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The one thing that unifies men in a given age is not their individual philosophies but the dominant problem that these philosophies are designed to solve.

Jacques Barzun

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Jacques Barzun
Age: 104 †
Born: 1907
Born: November 30
Died: 2012
Died: October 25
Critic
Cultural Historian
Historian
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Problem
Philosophies
Thing
Dominant
Men
Designed
Solve
Philosophy
Age
Individual
Given
Unifies

More quotes by Jacques Barzun

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Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper not eternal bronze: Let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes.
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Schools are not intended to moralize a wicked world, but to impart knowledge and develop intelligence, with only two social aims in mind: prepare to take on one's share in the world's work, and perhaps in addition, lend a hand in improving society, after schooling is done.
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Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
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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.
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Strangers who have seen Shaw face to face are wont to report their surprise at his gentleness and consideration, his willingness to listen and his complete lack of pose.
Jacques Barzun
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In producers, loafing is productive and no creator, of whatever magnitude, has ever been able to skip that stage, any more than a mother can skip gestation.
Jacques Barzun
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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
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When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent.
Jacques Barzun
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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
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Simple English is no one’s mother tongue. It has to be worked for.
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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
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[T]hat is the triumph of history - truth absolute is not at hand the original with which to match the copy does not exist.
Jacques Barzun
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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
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Baseball is a kind of collective chess with arms and legs in full play under sunlight.
Jacques Barzun
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The ever-present impulse is to push against restriction and, in so doing, to feel intolerably hemmed in. Thus in practice, every liberation increases the sense of oppression. Nor is the paradox merely in the mind: the laws enacted to secure the rights of every person and group, by creating protective boundaries, create new barriers.
Jacques Barzun
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It is always some illusion that creates disillusion, especially in the young, for whom the only alternative to perfection is cynicism.
Jacques Barzun
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I'll read, and then I'll take naps. When I feel sleep coming on, I give in and don't fight it.
Jacques Barzun
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Above all, the ability to feel the force of an argument apart from the substance it deals with is the strongest weapon against prejudice.
Jacques Barzun
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If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age.
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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