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Herbert Croly

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Famous Herbert Croly Quotes

“So long as the great majority of the poor in any country are inert and are laboring without any hope in this world, the whole associated life of that community rests on an equivocal foundation. Its moral and social order is tied to an economic system which starves and mutilates the great majority of the population, and under such conditions its religion necessarily becomes a spiritual drug, administered for the purpose of subduing the popular discontent and relieving the popular misery.”

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Author:Herbert Croly
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“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]”

IfsHumansWellsFormPoliticalFallDemocracyEffectsHuman NatureSafeOrganizationInstitutionsAssumingDemocratSincereProgressivePlatformsObliged
Book:The Promise of American Life
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“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.”

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Author: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.”

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Book:The Promise of American Life
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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.”

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Book:The Promise of American Life
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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.”

Has BeensAmericaLiteratureOpportunityEconomicPromiseAdvantageIndependenceProsperityAliensImmigrantsAmerican LifeConvertingEconomic Independence
Book:The Promise of American Life
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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.”

WellsFormPoliticalOrderSocialInterestBehindsCitizensCapableOrganizationLaysPropertyFavorsStablePromotingSocial OrderFederalism
Book:The Promise of American Life
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