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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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Lincoln Steffens
Age: 70 †
Born: 1866
Born: April 6
Died: 1936
Died: August 9
Autobiographer
Journalist
San Francisco County
California
Lincoln Austin Steffens
Understand
Russian
Government
Habits
People
Soviet
Psychology
Condition
Habit
Conditions
Grew
Fitted

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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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I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
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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 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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Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.
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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.
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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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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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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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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 possible to get an education at a university. It has been done not often.
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I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
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It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men.
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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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The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the 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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Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
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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.
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The only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.
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