Of True Knowledge At Any Time, A Good Part Is Merely Convenient, Necessary Indeed To The Worker, But Not To An Understanding Of His Subject: One Can Judge A Building Without Knowing Where To Buy The Bricks; One Can Understand A Violin Sonata Without Knowing How To Score For The Instrument. The Work May In Fact Be Better Understood Without A Knowledge Of The Details Of Its Manufacture, Of Attention To These Tends To Distract From Meaning And Effect.

-Jacques Barzun

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Of True Knowledge At Any Time, A

Jacques Barzun

Of True Knowledge At Any Time, A Good Part Is Merely Convenient, Necessary Indeed To The Worker, But Not To An Understanding Of His Subject: One Can Judge A Building Without Knowing Where To Buy The Bricks; One Can Understand A Violin Sonata Without Knowing How To Score For The Instrument. The Work May In Fact Be Better Understood Without A Knowledge Of The Details Of Its Manufacture, Of Attention To These Tends To Distract From Meaning And Effect.

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Knowledge

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Judging

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.

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