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The philosophical implication of race-thinking is that by offering us the mystery of heredity as an explanation, it diverts our attention from the social and intellectual factors that make up personality.
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
Personality
Diverts
Intellectual
Implication
Mystery
Heredity
Race
Implications
Attention
Offering
Social
Explanation
Make
Factors
Thinking
Philosophical
More quotes by Jacques Barzun
Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in all things we deem important to the society and the individual.
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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
[T]hat is the triumph of history - truth absolute is not at hand the original with which to match the copy does not exist.
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On reflection, moral judgment in the arts appears rather as a tribute to their power to influence emotion and possibly conduct. And reflecting further on what some critics do today, one sees that a good many have merely shifted the ground of their moralism, transferring their impulse of righteousness to politics and social issues.
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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.
Jacques Barzun
It is always some illusion that creates disillusion, especially in the young, for whom the only alternative to perfection is cynicism.
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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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Out of man's mind in free play comes the creation Science. It renews itself, like the generations, thanks to an activity which is the best game of homo ludens: science is in the strictest and best sense a glorious entertainment.
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Highly-adaptive, informal networks move diagonally and eliptically, skipping entire functions to get things done.
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Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
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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.
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Democracy, to maintain itself, must repeatedly conquer every cell and corner of the nation. How many of our public institutions and private businesses, our schools, hospitals, and domestic hearths are in reality little fascist states where freedom of speech is more rigorously excluded than vermin?
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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
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
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
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.
Jacques Barzun
Above all, do not talk yourself out of good ideas by trying to expound them at haphazard meetings.
Jacques Barzun
Only a great mind that is overthrown yields tragedy
Jacques Barzun
You never step in the same river of thought twice, because neither you nor it are the same.
Jacques Barzun
Science is, in the best and strictest sense, glorious entertainment
Jacques Barzun