Henry Adams

Politics... have always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

All experience is an arch, to build upon.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.

There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own.

Some day science may have the existence of mankind in power, and the human race can commit suicide by blowing up the world.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

Chaos was the law of nature Order was the dream of man.

Good men do the most harm.

The habit of expression leads to the search for something to express. Something remains as a residuum of the commonplace itself, if one strikes out every commonplace in the expression.

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.

No one means all he says and yet very few say all they mean.

A teacher affects eternity he can never tell where his influence stops.

Everyone carries his own inch-rule of taste and amuses himself by applying it triumphantly wherever he travels.

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.

Politics as a practice whatever its professions has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.