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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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Lincoln Steffens
Age: 70 †
Born: 1866
Born: April 6
Died: 1936
Died: August 9
Autobiographer
Journalist
San Francisco County
California
Lincoln Austin Steffens
Imagine
Sensible
Knowable
Knowledge
Psychology
Streaks
Force
Discovered
Indivisible
Science
Physics
Atom
Found
Nine
Astronomy
Soul
Beginning
Ninety
Matter
Percent
Atoms
Probably
Composition

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Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
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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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The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.
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Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.
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I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
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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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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.
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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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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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Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure.
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The only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.
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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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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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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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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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My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being.
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It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men.
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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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