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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

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.
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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.
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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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The only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.
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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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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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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 unknown is the province of the student it is the field for his lifes adventure, and it is a wide field full of beckonings
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The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.
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 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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The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.
Lincoln Steffens
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I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.
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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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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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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Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
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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I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
Lincoln Steffens
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It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done not often.
Lincoln Steffens