Quotes by Henry Adams

"Politics... have always been the systematic organization of hatreds."

"Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds."

"Practical politics consists in ignoring facts."

"Politics are a very unsatisfactory game."

"Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds."

"We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and, when got, the repose is insupportable."

"We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable."

"No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous."

"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers."

"Friends are born, not made."

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."

"A teacher affects eternity he can never tell where his influence stops."

"Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education."

"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts."

"A friend in power is a friend lost."

"Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels."

"Some day science may have the existence of mankind in power, and the human race can commit suicide by blowing up the world."

"What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn."

"Morality is a private and costly luxury."

"Accident counts for as much in companionship as in marriage."

"Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man."

"It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own."

"The American President resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek."

"Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man."

"One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible."

"One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim."

"Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit."

"The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing."

"All experience is an arch, to build upon."

"Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems."

"I have written too much history to have faith in it and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him."

"The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin."

"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."

"American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it."

"It is always good men who do the most harm in the world."

"Chaos was the law of nature Order was the dream of man."

"Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself."

"There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence."

"No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself."

"I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist."