Quote

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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Jacques Barzun
Age: 104 †
Born: 1907
Born: November 30
Died: 2012
Died: October 25
Critic
Cultural Historian
Historian
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Emotion
Faith
Energy
History
Strong
Fanatical
Science
Pervasive
Thought
Mode
Source

More quotes by Jacques Barzun

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In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.
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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.
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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.
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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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Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine.
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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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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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You never step in the same river of thought twice, because neither you nor it are the same.
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Simple English is no one’s mother tongue. It has to be worked for.
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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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To delve into history entails, besides the grievance of hard work, the danger that in the depths one may lose one’s scapegoats.
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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.
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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.
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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I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.
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Highly-adaptive, informal networks move diagonally and eliptically, skipping entire functions to get things done.
Jacques Barzun
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An artist has every right - one may even say a duty - to exhibit his productions as prominently as he can.
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.
Jacques Barzun
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Baseball is a kind of collective chess with arms and legs in full play under sunlight.
Jacques Barzun