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. – Irving Babbitt
Act strenuously, would appear to be our faith, and right thinking will take care of itself. – 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 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
A true quotation cannot be divorced from the character who uttered or scribbled it; it should say as much about the person quoted as about the particular subject referred to, and for this reason an anthology of quotations should be a kind of portrait gallery. – Robert Andrews, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, “Introduction”