Home / Quotes / Quote by Jacques Barzun

Quote by Jacques Barzun

“Among the words that can be all things to all men, the word "race" has a fair claim to being the most common, most ambiguous and most explosive. No one today would deny that it is one of the great catchwords about which ink and blood are spilled in reckless quantities. Yet no agreement seems to exist about what race means.”

Quote by Jacques Barzun

Book:Race: a study in superstition

Work

Race: a study in superstition

This book delves into the historical and cultural aspects of superstitions surrounding race, examining their origins and impact on society. more

Author

Jacques Barzun was an American historian, born on November 30, 1907, and passed away on October 25, 2012. He was renowned for his profound insights into Western culture, literature, and history, and is considered one of the most important cultural critics of the 20th century. more

You May Also Like

“A student under my care owes his first allegiance to himself and not to my specialty; and must not be burdened with my work as if he followed no other and had contracted no obligation under heaven but that of satisfying my requirements.”

Ifs Firsts Care Heaven Students Obligation Satisfying Requirements Allegiance Specialty

Author:Jacques Barzun

“The greatest artists have never been men of taste. By never sophisticating their instincts they have never lost the awareness of the great simplicities, which they relish both from appetite and from the challenge these offer to skill in competition with popular art.”

Men Art Artist Lost Challenges Awareness Taste Offers Skills Competition Instinct Simplicity Appetite Relish

Author:Jacques Barzun

“We are accustomed to the artist scoundrel or specialist in vice, and unaccustomed to the creator in whom passion and reason and moral integrity hold in balance. But greatness of intellect and feeling, or soul and conduct - magnanimity, in short - does occur; it is not a myth for boy scouts, and its reality is important, if only to give us the true range of the term "human," which we so regularly define by its lower reaches.”

“Everybody keeps calling for Excellence - excellence not just in schooling, throughout society. But as soon as somebody or something stands out as Excellent, the other shout goes up: "Elitism!" And whatever produced that thing, whoever praises that result, is promptly put down. "Standing out" is undemocratic.”

Results Calling Standing Praise Excellence Excellent Standing Out Schooling Elitism

Author: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.”

Should Important Individual Democracy Citizens Models All Things Remains Participants Bernard Shaw

Author:Jacques Barzun

“Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing.”

Age Profession Old Age

Author: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.”

Faces Surprise Stranger Reports Consideration Willingness Gentleness Face To Face

Author:Jacques Barzun

“Shaw does not merely decorate a proposition, but makes his way from point to point through new and difficult territory. This explains why Shaw must either be taken whole or left alone. He must be disassembled and put together again with nothing left out, under pain of incomprehension; for his politics, his art, and his religion - to say nothing of the shape of his sentences - are unique expressions of this enormously enlarged and yet concentrated consciousness.”

Way Doe Art Whole Pain Together Left Difficult Consciousness Taken Expression Shapes Unique Sentences Territory Propositions Left Alone Left Out Together Again Incomprehension

Author:Jacques Barzun

“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.”

Form Social Authority Assertiveness

Author:Jacques Barzun

“On the one hand, society needs a common faith and vigorous institutions with the power to coerce; and on the other, the individual as a human soul or as the bearer of a new and possibly saving heresy, must be free. It is difficult enough to reconcile these two needs, but the problem holds another hazard: the need of action under the pressure of time.”

Needs Humans Two Soul Enough Problem Hands Action Individual Difficult Common Pressure Institutions Saving Human Soul Heresy Vigorous Reconcile Hazards Coerce

Author:Jacques Barzun