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.
Interpretation
Democracy relies on the idea of serving one another, and its structure should reflect this belief.
Herbert Croly's quote highlights the fundamental principle of democracy, which is the collaborative service to fellow citizens. He emphasizes that the very organization of democratic systems should evolve to support and facilitate this principle, suggesting that true democracy is not just a political structure but a commitment to mutual support and service among individuals.
In practice
During a community meeting, to emphasize the importance of serving one another in our democracy.
Democracy must stand or fall on a platform of possible human perfectibility. If human nature cannot be improved by institutions, democracy is at best a more than usually safe form of political organization . . . . But if it is to work better as well as merely longer, it must have some leavening effect on human nature; and the sincere democrat is obliged to assume the power of the leaven. [Progressive]
The Bible is the Word of God in such a way that when the Bible speaks, God speaks.
Today I live on an island, in a house that is sad, hard, severe, that I built for myself, solitary on a sheer rock over the sea: a house that is the spectre, the secret image of prison. The image of my nostalgia. Maybe I never desired, not even then, to escape from jail. Man is not meant to live freely in freedom, but to be free inside a prison.
Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.
War is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror. Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace builds, war destroys.
A Witch is born out of the true hungers of her time,β she said. βI was born out of New York. The things that are most wrong here summoned me. ("Drink Entire: Against The Madness Of Crowds")
Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.
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