“Yet Americans are not visionary, they are not sentimentalists. They want idealism, but they want it to be practical, they want it to produce results.”

—  Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)
Context: Yet Americans are not visionary, they are not sentimentalists. They want idealism, but they want it to be practical, they want it to produce results. It would be little use to try to convince them of the soundness and righteousness of their institutions, if they could not see that they have been justified in the past history and the present condition of the people. They estimate the correctness of the principle by the success which they find in their own experience. They have faith but they want works.

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Calvin Coolidge 412
American politician, 30th president of the United States (i… 1872–1933

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