Henry B. Adams Quotes

"Young men have a passion for regarding their elders as senile."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Men, Passion)

"Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Grave, Man)

"We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Obstacles, Order)

"Politics are a very unsatisfactory game."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Politics)

"Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Politics, Practice)

"Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Power, Effect, Poison)

"Power when wielded by abnormal energy is the most serious of facts."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Power, Energy, Facts)

"Practical politics consists in ignoring facts."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Politics, Facts)

"Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Man, Simplicity)

"The American President resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: American, President, Sea)

"The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Men, Power, Effect, Killing, Publicity, Self)

"The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Trust, Purpose, Lies, Nothing, Press)

"The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Progress, Evolution, President, Washington)

"The proper study of mankind is woman."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Mankind, Study, Woman)

"The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Man, Woman, Wrong)

"There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Intelligence)

"They know enough who know how to learn."
- Henry B. Adams

"One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Friendship, Life, Thought, Community, Needs, Rivalry)

"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Education, Facts, Ignorance, Nothing)

"Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Genius)

"Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Life, Habit, Chaos, Order)

"No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Man, Years)

"A friend in power is a friend lost."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Power, Friend)

"A teacher affects eternity he can never tell, where his influence stops."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Eternity, Influence)

"Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Absence, Liberty, Responsibility, Restraint)

"Accident counts for as much in companionship as in marriage."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Marriage, Accident, Companionship)

"All experience is an arch, to build upon."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Experience)

"Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Answers, Problems)

"At best, the renewal of broken relations is a nervous matter."
- Henry B. Adams

"Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Nature, Dream, Chaos, Law, Man, Order)

"Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Education, Nature, Knowledge, Beginning, End, Human nature)

"No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Thought, Man, Words)

"American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Society, American)

"Morality is a private and costly luxury."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Morality, Luxury)

"Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Taste)

"It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Intelligence, Beginning)

"It is always good men who do the most harm in the world."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Men, Harm, World)

"Intimates are predestined."
- Henry B. Adams

"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Purpose)

"Friends are born, not made."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Friends)

"No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself."
- Henry B. Adams
(Related: Faith, Intelligence, Man)