Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jacques Barzun
Age: 104 †
Born: 1907
Born: November 30
Died: 2012
Died: October 25
Critic
Cultural Historian
Historian
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Men
Horizon
Hills
Boxed
Circles
Constructions
Release
Intervene
East
Exhilarating
Europe
Remote
Huge
Circle
Space
Construction

More quotes by Jacques Barzun

Image
Like Rousseau, whom he resembles even more than he resembles Voltaire, Shaw never gave a social form to his assertiveness, never desired to arrive and to assimilate himself, or wield authority as of right.
Jacques Barzun
Image
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
Image
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?
Jacques Barzun
Image
Intellect has nothing to do with equality except to respect it as a sublime convention.
Jacques Barzun
Image
It is always some illusion that creates disillusion, especially in the young, for whom the only alternative to perfection is cynicism.
Jacques Barzun
Image
Of course, clothing fashions have always been impractical, except in Tahiti.
Jacques Barzun
Image
Above all, do not talk yourself out of good ideas by trying to expound them at haphazard meetings.
Jacques Barzun
Image
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
Image
[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
Image
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.
Jacques Barzun
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Art distills sensation and embodies it with enhanced meaning in a memorable form - or else it is not art.
Jacques Barzun
Image
Simple English is no one’s mother tongue. It has to be worked for.
Jacques Barzun
Image
Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
Jacques Barzun
Image
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
Image
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.
Jacques Barzun
Image
I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.
Jacques Barzun
Image
Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing.
Jacques Barzun
Image
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.
Jacques Barzun