Best Lincoln Steffens Quotes & Sayings

I have been contending all my life, and always with God. — Lincoln Steffens

If we would vote in mass on the more promising ticket, or, if the two are equally bad, would throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in - then, I say, the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it. — Lincoln Steffens

I have seen the future, and it works. — Lincoln Steffens

Whenever anything extraordinary is done in American municipal politics, whether for good or for evil, you can trace it almost invariably to one man. The people do not do it. Neither do the 'gangs,' 'combines,' or political parties. — Lincoln Steffens

Flying to Monterey I had a sharp apprehension of the many times before when I had, like Lincoln Steffens, "come back," flown west, followed the sun, each time experiencing a lightening of spirit as the land below opened up, the checkerboards of the midwestern plains giving way to the vast empty reach between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada; then home, there, where I was from, me, California. It would be a while before I realized that "me" is what we think when our parents die, even at my age, who will look out for me now, who will remember me as I was, who will know what happens to me now, where will I be from. — Joan Didion

The longer I live, the more I feel that the individual is not so much to blame - not even the worst individuals, not even the 'best' citizens - as the system of corruption which has grown up about us, and which rewards an honest man with a mere living and a crook with all the magnificence of our magnificent modern life. — Lincoln Steffens

I am really puzzled to understand myself. — Lincoln Steffens

Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government. — Lincoln Steffens

I let my boy go and do and say pretty much as he likes, as, and perhaps because, my father kept no string on me. — Lincoln Steffens

Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure. — Lincoln Steffens

Most men think graft a sporadic evil, breaking out here and there, with no connection between outbreaks. I shared the same opinion, but very soon I discovered that the graft in the cities always leads to the graft in the State. — Lincoln Steffens

The best picture has not yet been painted; the greatest poem is still unsung; the mightiest novel remains to be written; the divinest music has not been conceived, even by Bach. In science, probably ninety-nine percent of the knowable has not yet been discovered. — Lincoln Steffens

My father would invite me sweetly to come and sit on a stool at his feet, and, as I let myself trustingly down, he would gently kick the seat from under me - and laugh. — Lincoln Steffens

One improvement I have learned from my childhood experience with my father: I do not threaten punishment in the morning. That was awful. Late into the night I would lie awake tossing and wondering what he was going to do to me. Usually he did nothing. A quiet, impressive 'talking to' was all I got. — Lincoln Steffens

In all cities, the better classes - the business men - are the sources of corruption, but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realize whence the trouble comes. — Lincoln Steffens

The Russian people, sober, are said to be a gentle people. — Lincoln Steffens

It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men. — Lincoln Steffens

It is our knowledge - the things we are sure of - that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning. — Lincoln Steffens

Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization. — Lincoln Steffens

We know that there is no absolute knowledge, that there are only theories; but we forget this. The better educated we are, the harder we believe in axioms. — Lincoln Steffens

The misgovernment of the American people is misgovernment by the American people. — Lincoln Steffens

You can't control a young horse unless you control yourself. — Lincoln Steffens

I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church. — Lincoln Steffens

Keep your baby eyes (which are the eyes of genius) on what we don't know — Lincoln Steffens

It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done; not often. — Lincoln Steffens

Why is it that the less intelligence people have, the more spiritual they are? They seem to fill all the vacant, ignorant spaces in their heads with soul. Which explains how it is that the less knowledge they have, the more religion. — Lincoln Steffens

My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being. — Lincoln Steffens

The Soviet government sprouted and grew out of the habits, the psychology, and the condition of the Russian people. It fitted them. They understand it. — Lincoln Steffens

morality is moral only when it is voluntary — Lincoln Steffens

First in violence, deepest in dirt, lawless, unlovely, ill-smelling, irreverent, new; an overgrown gawk of a - village, the "tough" among cities, a spectacle for the nation. — Lincoln Steffens

The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit. — Lincoln Steffens

If we would leave parties to the politicians, and would vote not for the party, not even for men, but for the city, and the State, and the nation, we should rule parties, and cities, and States, and nation. — Lincoln Steffens

I hunted far enough to suspect that the Fathers of the Republic who wrote our Sacred Constitution of the United States not only did not, but did not want to, establish a democratic government. — Lincoln Steffens

Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn't written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn't in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences are being fundamentally revised ... Psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein. — Lincoln Steffens