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By nature, man is lazy, working only under compulsion and when he is strong we will always live, as far as he can, upon the labor or the property of the weak.

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
Strong
Compulsion
Nature
Laziness
Live
Lazy
Always
Property
Men
Labor
Weak
Working
Upon

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American art, like the American language and American education, was as far as possible sexless.
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We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable.
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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.
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All State education is a sort of dynamo machine for polarizing the popular mind for turning and holding its lines of force in the direction supposed to be most effective for State purposes.
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As for piracy, I love to be pirated. It is the greatest compliment an author can have. The wholesale piracy of Democracy was the single real triumph of my life. Anyone may steal what he likes from me.
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The tourist was the great conservative who hated novelty and adored dirt.
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History is only a value of relation.
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For reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs. Lightfoot Lee decided to pass the winter in Washington.
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Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflecting on the goodness of God and the damnation of infants.
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The philosopher says--I am, and the church scouts his philosophy. She answers:--No! you are NOT, you have no existence of your own. You were and are and ever will be only a part of the supreme I AM, of which the church is the emblem.
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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.
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Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
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A friend in power is a friend lost.
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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.
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The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.
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History will die if not irritated. The only service I can do to my profession is to serve as a flea.
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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.
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No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else.
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Women have, commonly, a very positive moral sense that which they will, is right that which they reject, is wrong and their will, in most cases, ends by settling the moral.
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Silence alone is respectable and respected. I believe God to be silence.
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