Irving Babbitt - Control Quotes

3 Sourced Quotes

View all Irving Babbitt Quotes

What seems to me to be driving our whole civilization toward the abyss at present is a one-sided conception of liberty, a conception that is purely centrifugal, that would get rid of all outer control and then evade or deny openly the need of achieving inner control.

Irving Babbitt

It seems to me imperative to re-establish the true dualism—that between vital impulse and vital control—and to this end to affirm the higher will first of all as a psychological fact. The individual needs, however, to go beyond this fact if he is to decide how far he is to exercise control in any particular instance with a primary view to his own happiness: in short, he needs standards. To secure standards, at least critically, he cannot afford, like the Rousseauist, to disparage the intellect.

Irving Babbitt

The true dualism I take to be the contrast between two wills, one of which is felt as vital impulse (élan vital) and the other as vital control (frein vital).

Irving Babbitt