All Henry Adams Quotes
- I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him. Agree
- Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education. Beginning
- Man is an imperceptible atom always trying to become one with God. Always Trying
- Morality is a private and costly luxury. Costly
- No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. All
- No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else. Anything Else
- Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything. Conclude
- Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic. Been
- The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin. Alone
- We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable. Combat
- Young men have a passion for regarding their elders as senile. Elders
- Every man who has at last succeeded, after long effort, in calling up the divinity which lies hidden in a woman's heart, is startled to… Calling
- I tell you the solemn truth, that the doctrine of the Trinity is not so difficult to accept for a working proposition as any one… Accept
- Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflecting on the… Cheerful
- 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… Author
- Silence alone is respectable and respected. I believe God to be silence. Alone
- American politics is a struggle, not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central… American
- Power when wielded by abnormal energy is the most serious of facts. Abnormal
- In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man. Aside
- One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friend
- After Gibbs, one the most distinguished [American scientists] was Langley, of the Smithsonian. ... He had the physicist's heinous fault of professing to know nothing… American
- Laplace would have found it child's-play to fix a ratio of progression in mathematical science between Descartes, Leibnitz, Newton and himself Children
- [Adams] supposed that, except musicians, everyone thought Beethoven a bore, as every one except mathematicians thought mathematics a bore. Adams
- [P]olitical and social and scientific values ... should be correlated in some relation of movement that could be expressed in mathematics, nor did one care… All
- Energy is the inherent effort of every multiplicity to become unity. Effort