154 Quotes by Jacques Barzun

To denounce does not free the self from what it hates, any more than ignoring the past shuts off its influence.

Machines are admirable and tyrannize only with the user's consent. Where, then, is the enemy? Not where the machine gives relief from drudgery but where human judgment abdicates. The smoothest machine-made product of the age is the organization man, for even the best organizing principle tends to corrupt, and the mechanical principle corrupts absolutely.

Look for all fancy wordings and get rid of themAvoid all terms and expressions, old or new, that embody affectation.

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?

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.

Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation.

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.

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.

My notion about any artist is that we honor him best by reading him, by playing his music, by seeing his plays or by looking at his pictures. We don't need to fall all over ourselves with adjectives and epithets. Let's play him more.