Home / Quotes / Quote by Irving Babbitt

Quote by 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.”

Quote by Irving Babbitt

Author

Irving Babbitt was an American scholar and critic known for his profound insights into literature and culture. His works spanned various fields including literary criticism, moral philosophy, and literary theory. more

You May Also Like

“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.”

Way Today Quality Democracy Concerned Quantity Another Way

Book:On Literature, Cultures, and Religion

Source: On Literature, Cultures, and Religion

“Democracy is now going forth on a crusade against imperialism.”

Democracy Imperialism Crusades

Book:On Literature, Cultures, and Religion

Source: On Literature, Cultures, and Religion

“If we are to have such a discipline we must have standards, and to get our standards under existing conditions we must have criticism.”

Ifs Conditions Discipline Standards Criticism

Book:On Literature, Cultures, and Religion

Source: On Literature, Cultures, and Religion

“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.”

Men Kind Form Turns Military Type Goes On Discipline Absence Kind Man

Author:Irving Babbitt

“Biologically, man is still the great amateur of the animal kingdom; he is unique in his lack of anatomical and physiological specialization.”

Men Stills Animal Mankind Unique Kingdoms Physiological Specialization Animal Kingdom

Author:Rene Dubos

“It is possible to analyze the biological and social influences that make each human being unique, unprecedented, and unrepeatable, but this analysis does not explain how and why each feels different from all other human beings.”

Humans Human Beings Mankind Unique Unprecedented

Author:Rene Dubos

“Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation.”

Government Nations Acceptance Presses Journalism Maturity Dissidents

Book:An Almanac of Liberty

Source: An Almanac of Liberty

“The use of violence as an instrument of persuasion is therefore inviting and seems to the discontented to be the only effective protest.”

Use Seems Violence Instruments Protest Persuasion Inviting

Book:POINTS OF REBELLION

Source: POINTS OF REBELLION

“Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don't like, provided the matter relates to "sexual impurity" or has a tendency "to excite lustful thoughts." This is community censorship in one of its worst forms. It creates a regime where, in the battle between the literati and the Philistines, the Philistines are certain to win.”

“Man is about to be an automaton; he is identifiable only in the computer. As a person of worth and creativity, as a being with an infinite potential, he retreats and battles the forces that make him inhuman. The dissent we witness is a reaffirmation of faith in man; it is protest against living under rules and prejudices and attitudes that produce the extremes of wealth and poverty and that make us dedicated to the destruction of people through arms, bombs, and gases, and that prepare us to think alike and be submissive objects for the regime of the computer.”