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The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.

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
Graft
Lawlessness
American
Spirit

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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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The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.
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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.
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I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
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I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
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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 only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.
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It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done not often.
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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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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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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 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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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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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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Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.
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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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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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