Jacques Barzun Biography

Occup.	Educator
From	USA
Born	November 30, 1907
Age	116 years

Jacques Barzun was an esteemed French-American historian, writer, and cultural doubter that was born upon November 30, 1907, in Créteil, France. He was increased in a rather cultured and also intellectual home, as his daddy, Henri Barzun, was a prominent French author as well as diplomat. With a youth spent surrounded by avant-garde musicians and also intellectuals such as Marcel Duchamp and Apollinaire, Barzun created an eager passion in literary works, background, art, and music.

Barzun's family moved to the United States in the very early 1920s, clearing up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where Jacques began his additional education, mainly in English. Because of his exceptional scholastic capabilities, he was provided admission to Columbia University at the age of 16, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in History in 1927. Later, Barzun continued at Columbia, earning a Master of Arts in history in 1928 as well as a Ph.D. in 1932.

During his time at Columbia, Barzun developed a long-term friendship with his teacher Lionel Trilling, that later on ended up being a prominent literary critic. Both worked together on numerous projects, consisting of the production of the arts journal "Scripts," which paved the way for their subsequent cooperation on "The Readers' Subscription," a month-to-month book club. Barzun likewise established himself as a talented teacher as well as mentor, supporting the intellectual growth of several trainees throughout his lengthy occupation.

Jacques Barzun's body of work consists of a substantial array of subjects associated with background, culture, and education. Some of his most considerable publications include "Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage" (1941), which critiques the impact of the 3 thinkers on modern idea, as well as "The House of Intellect" (1959), where he decries the decline of intellectual life because of overspecialization and materialism.

In 1968, after over four decades, Barzun relinquished teaching at Columbia University but remained an energetic scholar and author. His magnum piece, "From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the here and now" (2000), covers over 800 pages and also supplies an enthusiastic study of the cultural and intellectual revolutions that have formed Western civilization. Barzun continued composing and offering insights on modern culture and also education up until his death in 2012.

Throughout his occupation, Jacques Barzun received various awards and honors for his contributions to the world of letters, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003. His later jobs, such as "Teacher in America" (1945) and "The American University" (1968), tension the relevance of liberal arts education and learning as well as maintaining knowledge obtainable to a more comprehensive target market.

Barzun wed Mariana Lowell, sibling of the well-known poet Robert Lowell, in 1936, as well as they had 3 children with each other before eventually divorcing. In 1980, he married Marguerite Lee Davenport, with whom he invested the remainder of his life.

Jacques Barzun passed away on October 25, 2012, at the age of 104, in San Antonio, Texas. His tradition survives on via his extensive writings, his effect on the fields of background and also cultural objection, as well as the mentorship he gave to several generations of scholars.

Our collection contains 21 quotes who is written / told by Jacques, under the main topic Society.

Related authors: Robert Lowell (Poet), Lionel Trilling (Critic), Chevy Chase (Comedian), Marcel Duchamp (Artist), Lawrence Taylor (Athlete)

21 Famous quotes by Jacques Barzun

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

"Of course, clothing fashions have always been impractical, except in Tahiti"

"Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions"

"Only a great mind that is overthrown yields tragedy"

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

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

"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"

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

"Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine"

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

"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"

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

"Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred"

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

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

"An artist has every right - one may even say a duty - to exhibit his productions as prominently as he can"

"The intellectuals' chief cause of anguish are one another's works"

"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"

"Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice"

"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game - and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams"