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"Since it is seldom clear whether intellectual activity denotes a superior mode of being or a vital deficiency, opinion swings between considering intellect a privilege and seeing it as a handicap."
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"Great is the difference betwixt a man's being frightened at, and humbled for his sins."
"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad."
"The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down."
"To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved."
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
"And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness."
Explore more quotes by Jacques Barzun
"A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative, who has both feet firmly planted in his mouth."
"Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole."
"If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real."
"Art distills sensation and embodies it with enhanced meaning in a memorable form - or else it is not art."
"Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions."
"In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years."
"The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind."
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