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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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Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.
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I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
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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.
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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 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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It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done not often.
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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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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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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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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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The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.
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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.
Lincoln Steffens
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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.
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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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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My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being.
Lincoln Steffens
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I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
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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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