154 Quotes by Jacques Barzun

Of true knowledge at any time, a good part is merely convenient, necessary indeed to the worker, but not to an understanding of his subject: One can judge a building without knowing where to buy the bricks; one can understand a violin sonata without knowing how to score for the instrument. The work may in fact be better understood without a knowledge of the details of its manufacture, of attention to these tends to distract from meaning and effect.

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.

The world has long observed that small acts of immorality, if repeated, will destroy character. It is equally manifest, though never said, that uttering nonsense and half-truth without cease ends by destroying Intellect.

Tennis belongs to the individualistic past – a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.

Science is, in the best and strictest sense, glorious entertainment.

The reason why research is like sculpting from memory is that in neither is there a concrete visible subject to copy directly. The subject – as sculptors themselves are fond of saying – is hidden in the block of material.

Art distills sensation and embodies it with enhanced meaning in a memorable form – or else it is not art.

To watch a football game is to be in a prolonged neurotic doubt as to what you’re seeing. It’s more like an emergency happening at a distance than a game. I don’t wonder the spectators take to drink.

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.