Natalie Babbitt Quotes

“Right after graduation, I married Samuel Fisher Babbitt, an academic administrator. I spent the next ten years in Connecticut, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., raising our children, Christopher, Tom, and Lucy.”

“The game (baseball)was a custom of his clan, and it gave outlet for the homicidal and sides-taking instincts which Babbitt called “patriotism” and “love of sport.”

“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.”

“For behind all imperialism is ultimately the imperialistic individual, just as behind all peace is ultimately the peaceful individual.”

“The humanitarian lays stress almost solely upon breadth of knowledge and sympathy.”

“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.”

“The true humanist maintains a just balance between sympathy and selection.”

“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.”

“This isn't just about today, this about generations to come. And you've got a chance to be the greatest conservation President since Theodore Roosevelt, and I think he's done it.”

“Tell him, on the contrary, that he needs, in the interest of his own happiness, to walk in the path of humility and self-control, and he will be indifferent, or even actively resentful.”