Irving Babbitt quotes

For behind all imperialism is ultimately the imperialistic individual, just as behind all peace is ultimately the peaceful individual. (Irving Babbitt)
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. View quote
Irving Babbitt
The industrial revolution has tended to produce everywhere great urban masses that seem to be increasingly careless of ethical standards. View quote
Irving Babbitt
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. View quote
Irving Babbitt
The human mind, if it is to keep its sanity, must maintain the nicest balance between unity and plurality. View quote
Irving Babbitt
Anyone who thus looks up has some chance of becoming worthy to be looked up to in turn. View quote
Irving Babbitt
A person who has sympathy for mankind in the lump, faith in its future progress, and desire to serve the great cause of this progress, should be called not a humanist, but a humanitarian, and his creed may be designated as humanitarianism. View quote
Irving Babbitt
If quantitatively the American achievement is impressive, qualitatively it is somewhat less satisfying. View quote
Irving Babbitt
Furthermore, America suffers not only from a lack of standards, but also not infrequently from a confusion or an inversion of standards. View quote
Irving Babbitt
A democracy, the realistic observer is forced to conclude, is likely to be idealistic in its feelings about itself, but imperialistic about its practice. View quote
Irving Babbitt
The humanitarian would, of course, have us meddle in foreign affairs as part of his program of world service. (Irving Babbitt)
An American of the present day reading his Sunday newspaper in a state of lazy collapse is one of the most perfect symbols of the triumph of quantity over quality that the world has yet seen. View quote
Irving Babbitt
A remarkable feature of the humanitarian movement, on both its sentimental and utilitarian sides, has been its preoccupation with the lot of the masses. View quote
Irving Babbitt
We may affirm, then, that the main drift of the later Renaissance was away from a humanism that favored a free expansion toward a humanism that was in the highest degree disciplinary and selective. View quote
Irving Babbitt
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. View quote
Irving Babbitt
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. View quote
Irving Babbitt
The ultimate binding element in the medieval order was subordination to the divine will and its earthly representatives, notably the pope. View quote
Irving Babbitt
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. View quote
Irving Babbitt
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. View quote
Irving Babbitt
According to the new ethics, virtue is not restrictive but expansive, a sentiment and even an intoxication. View quote
Irving Babbitt
Perhaps as good a classification as any of the main types is that of the three lusts distinguished by traditional Christianity - the lust of knowledge, the lust of sensation, and the lust of power. (Irving Babbitt)
If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama. View quote
Irving Babbitt
To harmonize the One with the Many, this is indeed a difficult adjustment, perhaps the most difficult of all, and so important, withal, that nations have perished from their failure to achieve it. View quote
Irving Babbitt
Act strenuously, would appear to be our faith, and right thinking will take care of itself. View quote
Irving Babbitt
The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology. View quote
Irving Babbitt