Quote

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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Lincoln Steffens
Age: 70 †
Born: 1866
Born: April 6
Died: 1936
Died: August 9
Autobiographer
Journalist
San Francisco County
California
Lincoln Austin Steffens
Men
Source
Pursued
Cities
Sources
Realizing
Classes
Trouble
Corruption
Class
Rarely
Business
Fully
Comes
Caught
Better
Realize
Whence

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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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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 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 spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.
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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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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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The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.
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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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It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done not often.
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I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
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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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The only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.
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I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
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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 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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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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Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.
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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 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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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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