Top 34 Quotes by Irving Babbitt

The humanitarian would, of course, have us meddle in foreign affairs as part of his program of world service.

The papacy again, representing the traditional unity of European civilization, has also shown itself unable to limit effectively the push of nationalism.

Very few of the early Italian humanists were really humane.

If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama.

The industrial revolution has tended to produce everywhere great urban masses that seem to be increasingly careless of ethical standards.

According to the new ethics, virtue is not restrictive but expansive, a sentiment and even an intoxication.

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.

The human mind, if it is to keep its sanity, must maintain the nicest balance between unity and plurality.

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.

A democracy, the realistic observer is forced to conclude, is likely to be idealistic in its feelings about itself, but imperialistic about its practice.