40 Quotes by Herbert Croly

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Unless the great majority of Americans not only have, but believe they have, a fair chance, the better American future will be dangerously compromised.

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.

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

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