Irving Babbitt Quotes
The industrial revolution has tended to produce everywhere great urban masses that seem to be increasingly careless of ethical standards.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
To say that most of us today are purely expansive is only another way of saying that most of us continue to be more concerned with the quantity than with the quality of our democracy.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
Inasmuch as society cannot go on without discipline of some kind, men were constrained, in the absence of any other form of discipline, to turn to discipline of the military type.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
Anyone who thus looks up has some chance of becoming worthy to be looked up to in turn.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
The papacy again, representing the traditional unity of European civilization, has also shown itself unable to limit effectively the push of nationalism.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
We must not, however, be like the leaders of the great romantic revolt who, in their eagerness to get rid of the husk of convention, disregarded also the humane aspiration.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
The democratic idealist is prone to make light of the whole question of standards and leadership because of his unbounded faith in the plain people.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
For behind all imperialism is ultimately the imperialistic individual, just as behind all peace is ultimately the peaceful individual.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
The ultimate binding element in the medieval order was subordination to the divine will and its earthly representatives, notably the pope.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
A remarkable feature of the humanitarian movement, on both its sentimental and utilitarian sides, has been its preoccupation with the lot of the masses.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
Robespierre, however, was not the type of leader finally destined to emerge from the Revolution.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
The humanitarian lays stress almost solely upon breadth of knowledge and sympathy.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
A man needs to look, not down, but up to standards set so much above his ordinary self as to make him feel that he is himself spiritually the underdog.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
Furthermore, America suffers not only from a lack of standards, but also not infrequently from a confusion or an inversion of standards.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
Tell him, on the contrary, that he needs, in the interest of his own happiness, to walk in the path of humility and self-control, and he will be indifferent, or even actively resentful.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
Very few of the early Italian humanists were really humane.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
According to the new ethics, virtue is not restrictive but expansive, a sentiment and even an intoxication.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
If quantitatively the American achievement is impressive, qualitatively it is somewhat less satisfying.
Irving Babbitt
American literary critic
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