Henry Adams Quotes

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.

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.

Philosophy . . .consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught.

Good men do the most harm.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. The imagination must be given not wings but weights.

In Paris and London he had seen nothing to make a return to life worth while; in Washington he saw plenty of reasons for staying dead.

I, too, like yourself was a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was ultramontane. Your party system is one of your thefts from our Church; your National Convention is our Ecunemic Council; you abdicate reason, as we do, before its decisions; and you yourself Mr. Ratcliffe, you are a Cardinal.

Washington was no politician as we understand the word," replied Ratcliffe abruptly. "He stood outside of politics. The thing couldn't be done today. The people don't like that sort of royal airs.

The study of history is useful to the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women.

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

Friends are born, not made.

A friend in power is a friend lost.

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 friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly