Irving Babbitt Quote

This higher will is felt in its relation to the impressions and impulses and expansive desires of the natural man as a will to refrain.... The failure to exercise the will to refrain in some form or degree means spiritual anarchy. A combination such as we are getting more and more at present of spiritual anarchy with an ever-increasing material efficiency—power without wisdom, as one is tempted to put it—is not likely to work either for the happiness of the individual or for the welfare of society.

p. 12 - "What I Believe" (1930)