154 Quotes by Jacques Barzun

For the educated, the authority of science rested on the strictness of its methods; for the mass, it rested on the powers of explanation.

I'll read, and then I'll take naps. When I feel sleep coming on, I give in and don't fight it.

To delve into history entails, besides the grievance of hard work, the danger that in the depths one may lose one’s scapegoats.

Only a great mind that is overthrown yields tragedy

The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers

Varese, Apollinaire, Ezra Pound, Leger, Gleizes, Severini, Villon, Duchamp, Duchamp-Villon, Marie Laurencin, Cocteau and many others were to me household names in the literal sense - names of familiar figures around the house.

If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age.

It seems a long time since the morning mail could be called correspondence.

In any assembly the simplest way to stop transacting business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principle.