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. – 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. – Irving Babbitt
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
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