"Scholarship has yielded to the irresistible pull that science exerts on our minds by its self-confidence and the promise of certified knowledge. But, to repeat, the objects of culture are not analyzable, not graspable by the geometric mind. Great works of art are great by virtue of being syntheses of the world; they qualify as art by fusing form and contents into an indivisible whole; what they offer is not "discourse about," nor a cipher to be decoded, but a prolonged incitement to finesse. So it is paradoxical that our way of introducing young minds to such works should be the way of scholarship."
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Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesPeople from ParisImmigrants to the United States
Original Language: English
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"Culture High and Dry", p. 14
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jacques_Barzun
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Jacques Barzun
Jacques Barzun (November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-born American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and classical music, and was also known as a philosopher of education.
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