Quote

Take a portion of wit, And fashion it fit, Like a needle, with point and with eye: A point that can wound, An eye to look round, And at folly or vice let it fly

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
Eye
Folly
Look
Wounds
Needle
Looks
Round
Needles
Take
Rounds
Portion
Like
Vices
Wound
Fit
Portions
Fashion
Wit
Point
Vice

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Finding oneself was a misnomer a self is not found but made.
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Simple English is no one’s mother tongue. It has to be worked for.
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When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent.
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Of course, clothing fashions have always been impractical, except in Tahiti.
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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.
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Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
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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.
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