Explore Quotes by Herbert Croly

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.

The first phase of American political history was characterized by the conflict between the Federalists and the Republicans, and it resulted in the complete triumph of the latter.

The popular will cannot be taken for granted, it must be created.

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.

The only fruitful promise of which the life of any individual or any nation can be possessed, is a promise determined by an ideal.

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.

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.

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.

Of course, Americans have no monopoly of patriotic enthusiasm and good faith.

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.

The higher American patriotism, on the other hand, combines loyalty to historical tradition and precedent with the imaginative projection of an ideal national Promise.

So far I, at least, have no fault to find with implications of Hamilton's Federalism, but unfortunately his policy was in certain other respects tainted with a more doubtful tendency.

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.

American history contains much matter for pride and congratulation, and much matter for regret and humiliation.

Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise.

In Jefferson's mind democracy was tantamount to extreme individualism.

Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less.

I am not a prophet in any sense of the word, and I entertain an active and intense dislike of the foregoing mixture of optimism, fatalism, and conservatism.

The majority of men cannot be made disinterested for life by exhortation, by religious services, by any expenditure of subsidized works, or even by grave and manifest public need. They can be made permanently unselfish only by being helped to become disinterested in their individual purposes. In the complete democracy a man must in some way be made to serve the nation in the very act of contributing to his own individual fulfillment. Not until his personal action is dictated by disinterested motives can there be any such harmony between private and public interests.

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.

If it be true that democracy is based upon the assumption that every man shall serve his fellow man, the organization of democracy should be gradually adapted to that assumption.