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

More quotes by 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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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.
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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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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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So youve been over into Russia? said Bernard Baruch, and I answered very literally, I have been over into the future and it works.
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I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
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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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My father was slower, but he was severer than my mother, who was quick but light and irregular in discipline.
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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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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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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 doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.
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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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Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
Lincoln Steffens
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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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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.
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.
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My father made with me one serious mistake which I see parents about me making. He got himself somehow into the awkward position of an authority I thought he knew and was right on everything - for a while.
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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
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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