Henry Adams Quotations | Page 3

All taxation is an evil, but heavy taxes, indiscriminately levied on every everything are one of the greatest curses that can afflict a people

The less a tourist knows, the fewer mistakes he need make, for he will not expect himself to explain ignorance.

Nothing is more tiresome than a superannuated pedagogue.

It is now conceded that all idea of British intervention is at an end... I want to hug the army of the Potomac. I want to get the whole army of Vicksburg drunk at my own expense. I want to fight some small man and lick him.

At the utmost, the active-minded young man should ask of his teacher only mastery of his tools. The young man himself, the subject of education, is a certain form of energy; the object to be gained is economy of his force; the training is partly the clearing away of obstacles, partly the direct application of effort. Once acquired, the tools and models may be thrown away.

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

Morality is a private and costly luxury.

Chaos breeds life; Order creates habit.

I think that Lee should have been hanged. It was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted conscientiously. It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.

A certain secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurking in the breast of every American Senator, if he is truly democratic; for democracy, rightly understood, is the government of the people, by the people, for the benefit of Senators, and there is always a danger that the British Minister may not understand this political principle as he should.

History will die if not irritated. The only service I can do to my profession is to serve as a flea.

The capacity of women to make unsuitable marriages must be considered as the cornerstone of society.

A congressman is a pig. The only way to get his snout from the trough is to rap it sharply with a stick.

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

One friend in a life-time is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

I am fairly tired--bored beyond endurance--by the world we live in, and its ideals, and am ready to say so, not violently, but kindly, as one rubs salt into the back of a flogged sailor as though one loved him.

I firmly believe, that before many centuries more, science will be the master of man. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday, science shall have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide by blowing up the world.