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When the Promise of American life is conceived as a national ideal, whose fulfillment is a matter of artful and laborious work, the effect thereof is substantially to identify the national purpose with the social problem.

Herbert Croly

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Herbert Croly
Age: 61 †
Born: 1869
Born: January 23
Died: 1930
Died: May 17
Journalist
Political Scientist
Trade Unionist
Writer
New York City
New York
Herbert David Croly
American
Fulfillment
Purpose
Ideal
Social
Effect
Laborious
Problem
Ideals
Artful
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More quotes by Herbert Croly

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In the long run men inevitably become the victims of their wealth. They adapt their lives and habits to their money, not their money to their lives. It preoccupies their thoughts, creates artificial needs, and draws a curtain between them and the world.
Herbert Croly
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The Constitution was the expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears. It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the bulwark of certain individual and local rights.
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I am not concerned with dodging the odium of the word. The proposed definition of democracy is socialistic . . . (democracy) should be characterized not so much socialistic, as unscrupulously and loyally nationalistic.
Herbert Croly
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The more consciously democratic Americans became, however, the less they were satisfied with a conception of the Promised Land, which went no farther than a pervasive economic prosperity guaranteed by free institutions.
Herbert Croly
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The interest which lay behind Federalism was that of well-to-do citizens in a stable political and social order, and this interest aroused them to favor and to seek some form of political organization which was capable of protecting their property and promoting its interest.
Herbert Croly
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The moral and social aspiration proper to American life is, of course, the aspiration vaguely described by the word democratic and the actual achievement of the American nation points towards an adequate and fruitful definition of the democratic ideal.
Herbert Croly
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Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise.
Herbert Croly
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Let it be immediately added, however, that this economic independence and prosperity has always been absolutely associated in the American mind with free political institutions.
Herbert Croly
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To the European immigrant - that is, to the aliens who have been converted into Americans by the advantages of American life - the Promise of America has consisted largely in the opportunity which it offered of economic independence and prosperity.
Herbert Croly
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The popular will cannot be taken for granted, it must be created.
Herbert Croly
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The adoption by Jefferson and the Republicans of the political structure of their opponents is of an importance hardly inferior to that of the adoption of the Constitution by the states.
Herbert Croly
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The combination of Federalism and Republicanism which formed the substance of the system, did not constitute a progressive and formative political principle, but it pointed in the direction of a constructive formula.
Herbert Croly
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Unless the great majority of Americans not only have, but believe they have, a fair chance, the better American future will be dangerously compromised.
Herbert Croly
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Of course, Americans have no monopoly of patriotic enthusiasm and good faith.
Herbert Croly
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The essential nature of a democracy compels it to insist that individual power of all kinds, political, economic, or intellectual, shall not be perversely and irresponsibly exercised.
Herbert Croly
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Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less.
Herbert Croly
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When Jefferson and the Republicans rallied to the Union and to the existing Federalist organization, the fabric of traditional American democracy was almost completely woven.
Herbert Croly
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In Jefferson's mind democracy was tantamount to extreme individualism.
Herbert Croly
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The American economic, political, and social organization has given to its citizens the benefits of material prosperity, political liberty, and a wholesome natural equality and this achievement is a gain, not only to Americans, but to the world and to civilization.
Herbert Croly
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Women ... are completely alone, though they were born and bred upon this soil, as if they belonged to another class in creation.
Herbert Croly