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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

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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
Form
Assimilate
Right
Wield
Even
Resembles
Never
Desired
Like
Arrive
Rousseau
Gave
Voltaire
Authority
Assertiveness
Social
Shaw

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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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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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Tennis belongs to the individualistic past - a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.
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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.
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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.
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The professionals resemble and recognize each other by virtue of the stigmata that their trade has left upon them. They are like the dog in the fable, whose collar has made an indelible mark around his neck. The amateur is the shaggy wolf whom no dog had better trust too far.
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Life is given us as a passion.
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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.
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An artist has every right - one may even say a duty - to exhibit his productions as prominently as he can.
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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.
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I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.
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Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing.
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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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The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.
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Speech, after all, is in some measure an expression of character, and flexibility in its use is a good way to tell your friends from the robots.
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.
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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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Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine.
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The intellectuals' chief cause of anguish are one another's works.
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We may complain and cavil at the anarchy which is the amateurs natural element, but in soberness we must agree that if the amateur did not exist it would be necessary to invent him.
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