Teachers affect eternity. There is no telling where their influence stops. Henry Adams More Quotes by Henry Adams More Quotes From Henry Adams A congressman is a pig. The only way to get his snout from the trough is to rap it sharply with a stick. Henry Adams rappigsway Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education. Henry Adams beginnings-and-endshuman-naturepolitical Morality is a private and costly luxury. Henry Adams luxuryethicsmorality 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 boredomclassamerica 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 boredomendurancetired A friend in power is a friend lost. Henry Adams best-friendlovefriendship Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. Henry Adams changelifeorder A senator is like a begonia - showy but useless. Henry Adams senatorsshowyuseless 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-afternoonsunny-weathersummer Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. Henry Adams political-willwittyscience We shall some day catch an abstract truth by the tail, and then we shall have our religion and our immortality. Henry Adams immortalitytruthtails It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own. Henry Adams intelligencehumansimpossible 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 governmentchildrenyears 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 strikeshabitexpression 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 citiesmenmean The world is coming to an end in 1950. Henry Adams technologyendsworld Mathematicians practice absolute freedom. Henry Adams mathematicianstatisticspractice 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 priderunningtwo 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 dogriversmen 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 hymnsyesterdayplay
