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Whenever anything extraordinary is done in American municipal politics, whether for good or for evil, you can trace it almost invariably to one man. The people do not do it. Neither do the 'gangs,' 'combines,' or political parties.

Lincoln Steffens

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Lincoln Steffens
Age: 70 †
Born: 1866
Born: April 6
Died: 1936
Died: August 9
Autobiographer
Journalist
San Francisco County
California
Lincoln Austin Steffens
Good
Politics
Invariably
Men
Party
Trace
People
American
Gang
Whether
Parties
Evil
Whenever
Political
Extraordinary
Municipal
Anything
Neither
Gangs
Done
Almost
Combines

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I hunted far enough to suspect that the Fathers of the Republic who wrote our Sacred Constitution of the United States not only did not, but did not want to, establish a democratic government.
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I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
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My father was slower, but he was severer than my mother, who was quick but light and irregular in discipline.
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If we would vote in mass on the more promising ticket, or, if the two are equally bad, would throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in - then, I say, the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it.
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The best picture has not yet been painted the greatest poem is still unsung the mightiest novel remains to be written the divinest music has not been conceived, even by Bach. In science, probably ninety-nine percent of the knowable has not yet been discovered.
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It is our knowledge - the things we are sure of - that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning.
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My father required me to honor my father and my mother too much to put up games on them. I did on occasion.
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The Soviet government sprouted and grew out of the habits, the psychology, and the condition of the Russian people. It fitted them. They understand it.
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The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.
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Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
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Why is it that the less intelligence people have, the more spiritual they are? They seem to fill all the vacant, ignorant spaces in their heads with soul. Which explains how it is that the less knowledge they have, the more religion.
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It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men.
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The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.
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One improvement I have learned from my childhood experience with my father: I do not threaten punishment in the morning. That was awful. Late into the night I would lie awake tossing and wondering what he was going to do to me. Usually he did nothing. A quiet, impressive 'talking to' was all I got.
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My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being.
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I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
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It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done not often.
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We know that there is no absolute knowledge, that there are only theories but we forget this. The better educated we are, the harder we believe in axioms.
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Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure.
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In all cities, the better classes - the business men - are the sources of corruption, but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realize whence the trouble comes.
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