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

Henry Adams

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Henry Adams
Age: 80 †
Born: 1838
Born: February 16
Died: 1918
Died: March 27
Historian
Historian Of The Modern Age
Journalist
Mathematician
Novelist
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Frances Snow Compton
Henry Adams
Sarcasm
Underestimate
Sarcastic
Stupidity
Average
Intelligence
Fool
Thing

More quotes by Henry Adams

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The common view of marriage as a primitive institution implies in the man more than arbitrary superiority, such as he exercised over the child, which still remained free. The woman's slavery was assumed to be for life.
Henry Adams
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[P]hilosophy . . .consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
Henry Adams
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What a vast fraternity it is,--that of 'Hearts that Ache.' For the last three months it has seemed to me as though all society were coming to me, to drop its mask for a moment and initiate me into the mystery. How we do suffer! And we go on laughing for, as a practical joke at our expense, life is a success.
Henry Adams
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Politics is simply the organization of hatreds.
Henry Adams
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During an election campaign the air is full of speeches and vice versa.
Henry Adams
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Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
Henry Adams
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They know enough who know how to learn.
Henry Adams
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The work of internal government has become the task of controlling the thousands of fifth-rate men.
Henry Adams
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The best date movies give you something to talk about. A movie that's a downer is a great way to find out about someone.
Henry Adams
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That the American, by temperament, worked to excess, was true work and whiskey were his stimulants work was a form of vice but he never cared much for money or power after he earned them.
Henry Adams
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No man can instruct more than half-a-dozen students at once. The whole problem of education is one of its cost in money.
Henry Adams
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Average human nature is very coarse, and its ideals must necessarily be average. The world never loved perfect poise. What the world does love is commonly absence of poise, for it has to be amused.
Henry Adams
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The sensation of seeing extremely fine women, with superb forms, perfectly unconscious of undress, and yet evidently aware of their beauty and dignity, is worth a week's seasickness to experience... [to me] the effect [of a Siva dance] was that of a dozen Rembrandts intensified into the most glowing beauty of life and motion.
Henry Adams
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Unbroken Evolution under uniform conditions pleased every one -- except curates and bishops it was the very best substitute for religion a safe, conservative practical, thoroughly Common-Law deity.
Henry Adams
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American politics is a struggle, not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central power houses.
Henry Adams
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American art, like the American language and American education, was as far as possible sexless.
Henry Adams
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One sought not absolute truth. One sought only a spool on which to wind the thread of history without breaking it.
Henry Adams
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The new American, like the new European, was the servant of the powerhouse, as the European of the twelfth century was the servant of the Church.
Henry Adams
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His brothers were the type he was the variation.
Henry Adams
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If it were worth while to argue a paradox, one might maintain that nature regards the female as the essential, the male as the superfluity of her world. Perhaps the best starting-point for study of the Virgin would be a practical acquaintance with bees, and especially with queen bees.
Henry Adams