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It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men.

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
Men
World
Wickedness
Privilege
Causes
Evil

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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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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.
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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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It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done not often.
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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.
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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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Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
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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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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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I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
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The only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.
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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.
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Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.
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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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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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The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.
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The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.
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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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My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being.
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Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure.
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