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Quote by Irving Babbitt

“It is well to open one's mind but only as a preliminary to closing it ... for the supreme act of judgment and selection.”

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

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“Act strenuously, would appear to be our faith, and right thinking will take care of itself.”

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Book:Literature and the American college: essays in defense of the humanities

Source: Literature and the American college: essays in defense of the humanities

“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.”

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Book:Literature and the American college: essays in defense of the humanities

Source: Literature and the American college: essays in defense of the humanities

“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.”

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Author: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.”

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Book:On Literature, Cultures, and Religion

Source: On Literature, Cultures, and Religion

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

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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Author:Rene Dubos

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

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Book:An Almanac of Liberty

Source: An Almanac of Liberty