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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
People
American
Gang
Whether
Parties
Evil
Whenever
Political
Extraordinary
Municipal
Anything
Neither
Gangs
Done
Almost
Combines
Good
Politics
Invariably
Men
Party
Trace

More quotes by Lincoln Steffens

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The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.
Lincoln Steffens
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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.
Lincoln Steffens
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If we would leave parties to the politicians, and would vote not for the party, not even for men, but for the city, and the State, and the nation, we should rule parties, and cities, and States, and nation.
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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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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.
Lincoln Steffens
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It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men.
Lincoln Steffens
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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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It is our knowledge - the things we are sure of - that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning.
Lincoln Steffens
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Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.
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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.
Lincoln Steffens
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It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done not often.
Lincoln Steffens
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Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
Lincoln Steffens
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I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
Lincoln Steffens
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My father was slower, but he was severer than my mother, who was quick but light and irregular in discipline.
Lincoln Steffens
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Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure.
Lincoln Steffens
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Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.
Lincoln Steffens
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The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism of credit, not honor of individual gain, not national prosperity of trade and dickering, not principle.
Lincoln Steffens
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I let my boy go and do and say pretty much as he likes, as, and perhaps because, my father kept no string on me.
Lincoln Steffens
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In science, probably ninety-nine percent of the knowable has to be discovered. We know only a few streaks about astronomy. We are only beginning to imagine the force and composition of the atom. Physics has not yet found any indivisible matter, or psychology a sensible soul.
Lincoln Steffens
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The unknown is the province of the student it is the field for his lifes adventure, and it is a wide field full of beckonings
Lincoln Steffens