The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind.

- Jacques Barzun

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.

- Jacques Barzun

Finding oneself was a misnomer; a self is not found but made.

- Jacques Barzun

Can an idea a notion as abstract as Relativism produce by itself the effects alleged? cause all the harm, destroy all the lives and reputations? I am…

- Jacques Barzun

When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent.

- Jacques Barzun

The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.

- Jacques Barzun

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

- Jacques Barzun

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.

- Jacques Barzun

In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.

- Jacques Barzun