Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Irving Babbitt

American Literary and Cultural Critic, Educator

"Unless there is a recovery of the true dualism or, what amounts to the same thing, a reaffirmation of the truths of the inner life in some form - traditional or critical, religious or humanistic - civilization in any sense that has been attached to that term hitherto is threatened at its base."

"The chief use of any widening out of knowledge and sympathy must be to prepare man more fully for the supreme moment of concentration and selection, the moment when he exercises his own special faculties."

"Since every man desires happiness, it is evidently no small matter whether he conceives of happiness in terms of work or of enjoyment. "

"According to the new ethics, virtue is not restrictive but expansive, a sentiment and even an intoxication. "

"The human mind, if it is to keep its sanity, must maintain the nicest balance between unity and plurality. "

"If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama. "

"We must not, however, be like the leaders of the great romantic revolt who, in their eagerness to get rid of the husk of convention, disregarded also the humane aspiration."

"This comparative indifference to clearness and consistency of thought is visible even in that chief object of our national concern, education."