History will die if not irritated. The only service I can do to my profession is to serve as a flea. Henry Adams More Quotes by Henry Adams More Quotes From Henry Adams Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education. Henry Adams beginnings-and-ends human-nature political Morality is a private and costly luxury. Henry Adams luxury ethics morality As for America, it is the ideal fruit of all your youthful hopes and reforms. Everybody is fairly decent, respectable, domestic, bourgeois, middle-class, and tiresome. There is absolutely nothing to revile except that it's a bore. Henry Adams boredom class america I am fairly tired--bored beyond endurance--by the world we live in, and its ideals, and am ready to say so, not violently, but kindly, as one rubs salt into the back of a flogged sailor as though one loved him. Henry Adams boredom endurance tired A friend in power is a friend lost. Henry Adams best-friend love friendship Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. Henry Adams change life order A senator is like a begonia - showy but useless. Henry Adams senators showy useless The Indian Summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth of tone, but never hustled. Henry Adams sunny-afternoon sunny-weather summer Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. Henry Adams political-will witty science We shall some day catch an abstract truth by the tail, and then we shall have our religion and our immortality. Henry Adams immortality truth tails It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own. Henry Adams intelligence humans impossible A period of about twelve years measured the beat of the pendulum. After the Declaration of Independence, twelve years had been needed to create an efficient Constitution; another twelve years of energy brought a reaction against the government then created; a third period of twelve years was ending in a sweep toward still greater energy; and already a child could calculate the result of a few more such returns. Henry Adams government children years The habit of expression leads to the search for something to express. Something remains as a residuum of the commonplace itself, if one strikes out every commonplace in the expression. Henry Adams strikes habit expression Society' in America means all the honest, kindly-mannered, pleasant- voiced women, and all the good, brave, unassuming men, between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Each of these has a free pass in every city and village, 'good for this generation only,' and it depends on each to make use of this pass or not as it may happen to suit his or her fancy. Henry Adams cities men mean The world is coming to an end in 1950. Henry Adams technology ends world Mathematicians practice absolute freedom. Henry Adams mathematician statistics practice There are two things that seem to be at the bottom of our constitutions; one is a continual tendency towards politics; the other is family pride; and it is strange how these two feelings run through all of us. Henry Adams pride running two My favorite figure of the American author is that of a man who breeds a favorite dog, which he throws into the Mississippi River for the pleasure of making a splash. The river does not splash, but it drowns the dog. Henry Adams dog rivers men The hymns of David, the plays of Shakespeare, the metaphysics of Descartes, the crimes of Borgia, the virtues of Antonine, the atheism of yesterday and the materialism of today, were all emanations of divine thought, doing their appointed work. It was the duty of the church to deal with them all, not as though they existed through a power hostile to the deity, but as instruments of the deity to work out his unrevealed ends. Henry Adams hymns yesterday play Wild as man was, and disgusting as the more degraded tribes and communities were, the best of them, and all those from which further advance came, were marked by good qualities, or they could never have risen to a higher stage. Henry Adams quality community men
