Quote

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

Lincoln Steffens

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lincoln Steffens
Age: 70 †
Born: 1866
Born: April 6
Died: 1936
Died: August 9
Autobiographer
Journalist
San Francisco County
California
Lincoln Austin Steffens
American
Spirit
Graft
Lawlessness

More quotes by Lincoln Steffens

Image
The only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
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
Image
Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
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
Image
Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
My father required me to honor my father and my mother too much to put up games on them. I did on occasion.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
My father was slower, but he was severer than my mother, who was quick but light and irregular in discipline.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
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.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
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
Lincoln Steffens
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.
Lincoln Steffens
Image
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