An American of the present day reading his Sunday newspaper in a state of lazy collapse is one of the most perfect symbols of the triumph of quantity over quality that the world has yet seen.
Interpretation
The quote critiques modern society's preference for superficial abundance over meaningful substance.
Irving Babbitt highlights a societal trend where people prioritize the quantity of information and entertainment, represented by a person lazily reading a Sunday newspaper, over the quality of thought and experience. This reflects a cultural shift toward valuing superficial abundance, suggesting a loss of deeper engagement with life and ideas.
In practice
This quote could be shared in a discussion about consumerism and its effects on culture.
Commercialism is laying its great greasy paw upon everything including the irresponsible quest of thrills; so that, whatever democracy may be theoretically, one is sometimes tempted to define it practically as standardized and commercialized melodrama.
I don't know what it is about death that makes it so hard. I suppose it's the one-sided communication; the fact that we never get to ask our loved one if she suffered, if she is happy wherever she is now...if she is somewhere. It's the question mark that comes with death that we can't face, not the period.
It takes so many years to learn that one is dead.
For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible.
We Americans know - although others appear to forget - the risk of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'
Wherever the fear of God rules in the heart, it will appear both in works of charity and piety, and neither will excuse us from the other.
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