Herbert Croly

“A democracy, that is, and must be, an aristocracy of character and intelligence.”

“The national government must step in and discriminate; but it must discriminate, not on behalf of liberty and the special individual, but on behalf of equality and the average man.”

“No voluntary association of individuals, resourceful and disinterested as they may be, is competent to assume the responsibility.”

“The principle of democracy is virtue, and the principle of virtue is equality.”

“The promise of American life is to be fulfilled, not merely by a maximum amount of economic freedom, but by a certain measure of discipline.”

“The American state will in the future have to wear a much more positive and responsible aspect than it has in the past.”

“The better future which Americans have been promised can be won only by sincere and courageous liquidation of the popular American political traditions.”

“The average American is nothing if not a constructive individualist.”

“The individual American has been promissory rather than creative. He has been masterful, but rarely skeptical.”

“Democracy must stand or fall on a platform of human inequality.”

“What the American people want is a square deal.”