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If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age.
Jacques Barzun
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Civilization is resilient and can recover from setbacks.

Jacques Barzun's quote suggests that just as humanity progressed from primitive beginnings to sophisticated societies, it is possible to recover and advance again, even after experiencing degradation or decline in values and practices. The phrase 'Wastepaper Age' symbolizes a time of excess and disregard for meaningful principles, but it also carries the hope that transformation and improvement are achievable.

Themes

CivilizationResilienceRecoveryProgressHope

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used during a motivational speech to instill hope in a community facing challenges.

More from Jacques Barzun

Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.
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Machines are admirable and tyrannize only with the user's consent. Where, then, is the enemy? Not where the machine gives relief from drudgery but where human judgment abdicates. The smoothest machine-made product of the age is the organization man, for even the best organizing principle tends to corrupt, and the mechanical principle corrupts absolutely.
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In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.
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I can only think that the book is read because it deals with the difficulties of schooling, which do not change. Please note: the difficulties, not the problems. Problems are solved or disappear with the revolving times. Difficulities remain. It will always be difficult to teach well, to learn accurately; to read, write, and count readily and competently; to acquire a sense of history and start one's education or anothers.
Jacques BarzunRead
Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper not eternal bronze: Let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes.
Jacques BarzunRead
The world has long observed that small acts of immorality, if repeated, will destroy character. It is equally manifest, though never said, that uttering nonsense and half-truth without cease ends by destroying Intellect
Jacques BarzunRead

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