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I have been contending all my life, and always with God.

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
Always
Life
Contending

More quotes by 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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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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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
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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.
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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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
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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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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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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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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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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.
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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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 only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.
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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Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.
Lincoln Steffens
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Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
Lincoln Steffens
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My father was slower, but he was severer than my mother, who was quick but light and irregular in discipline.
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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The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.
Lincoln Steffens