The American reading his Sunday paper in a state of lazy collapse is perhaps the most perfect symbol of the triumph of quantity over quality…. Whole forests are being ground into pulp daily to minister to our triviality. – 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. – 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
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. – Irving Babbitt
One of the first laws against air pollution came in 1300 when King Edward I decreed the death penalty for burning of coal. At least one execution for that offense is recorded. But economics triumphed over health considerations, and air pollution became an appalling problem in England. – Glenn T. Seaborg, Atomic Energy Commission chairman, speech, Argonne National La