Jacques Barzun People Quotations

The nation in arms is virtually a communist state: the people must be paid wages and fed and protected and regimented behind the lines as much as on the front. Minds must be kept loyal and at the right pitch of hate, so that successive drafts of fighters are accepted without murmurings. Letters and newspapers must be censored while the propaganda mill grinds on. As for decisions of strategy and overall command, they must please many masters: dissenters in the cabinet, the heads of the allied states and public opinion. Hence failures must be disguised or concealed.

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

By the time I was 9, I had the conviction that everybody in the world was an artist except plumbers or people who delivered groceries.

Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine.