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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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Lincoln Steffens
Age: 70 †
Born: 1866
Born: April 6
Died: 1936
Died: August 9
Autobiographer
Journalist
San Francisco County
California
Lincoln Austin Steffens
State
Politician
States
Vote
Even
City
Would
Nation
Men
Leave
Cities
Parties
Nations
Politicians
Party
Rule

More quotes by Lincoln Steffens

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The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.
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It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men.
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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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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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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
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Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure.
Lincoln Steffens
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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.
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
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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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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
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I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
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 never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
Lincoln Steffens
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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.
Lincoln Steffens
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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.
Lincoln Steffens
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Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.
Lincoln Steffens
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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.
Lincoln Steffens
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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.
Lincoln Steffens
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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.
Lincoln Steffens
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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.
Lincoln Steffens