All Henry Adams Quotes
- A period of about twelve years measured the beat of the pendulum. After the Declaration of Independence, twelve years had been needed to create an… Another Twelve
- [regarding US conquest of the Philippines] "I turn green in bed at midnight if I think of the horror of a year's warfare in the… Bed
- No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else. All the dogmatic stations in life… All
- Although the Senate is much given to admiring in its members a superiority less obvious or quite invisible to outsiders, one Senator seldom proclaims his… Admiring
- That the American, by temperament, worked to excess, was true; work and whiskey were his stimulants; work was a form of vice; but he never… American
- Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. Bottom
- Even theologians, even the great theologians of the thirteenth century, even Saint Thomas Aquinas himself did not trust to faith alone, or assume the existence… Alone
- Throughout human history the waste of mind has been appalling, and, as this story is meant to show, society has conspired to promote it. No… Appalling
- The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught. Chief
- A parent gives life, but as parent, gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity; he can… Affects
- A new friend is always a miracle, but at thirty-three years old, such a bird of paradise rising in the sage-brush was an avatar. One… Avatar
- [P]hilosophy . . .consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems. Answers
- Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. The imagination must be given not wings but weights. Commanded
- From cradle to grave this problem of running order through chaos, direction through space, discipline through freedom, unity through multiplicity, has always been, and must… Art
- Of all studies, the one he would rather have avoided was that of his own mind. He knew no tragedy so heartrending as introspection. All
- Good men do the most harm. Good
- Unity is vision; it must have been part of the process of learning to see. Been
- He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and it affected him for life. The habit of… Affected
- You say that love is nonsense. I tell you it is no such thing. For weeks and months it is a steady physical pain, an… Ache
- As history stands, it is a sort of Chinese play, without end andl without lesson. With these impressions I wrote the last line of my… Asking
- History will die if not irritated. The only service I can do to my profession is to serve as a flea. Die
- History is the most aristocratic of all literary pursuits, because it obliges the historian to be rich as well as educated. All
- History is only a catalogue of the forgotten. Catalogue
- Nothing is easier to teach than historical method, but, when learned, it has little use. Easier
- My own conclusion is that history is simply social development along the lines of weakest resistance, and that in most cases the line of weakest… Along