FridayJan 23, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 - March 27, 1918) was an American novelist, journalist, historian and academic. He is best-known for his autobiographical book, The Education of Henry Adams . He was a member of the Adams political family.
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell, where his influence stops.
American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.
Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuse himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.
Had Grant been a Congressman one would have been on one's guard, for one knew the type. One never expected from a Congressman more than good intentions and public spirit. Newspaper-men as a rule had no great respect for the lower House; Senators had less; and Cabinet officers had none at all. Indeed, one day when Adams was pleading with a Cabinet officer for patience and tact in dealing with Representatives, the Secretary impatiently broke out: 'You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!' The secretary who made the remark 'may well have been Adams's friend, Secretary of the Interior Jacob Dolson Cox,' according to note 18 on p. 617.
No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else.
You can't use tact with a Congressman. A Congressman is a hog. You must take a stick and hit him on the snout.
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
All experience is an arch, to build upon.
One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.
It is always good men who do the most harm in the world.
It is impossible to underrate human intelligence beginning with one's own.
No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.
Morality is a private and costly luxury.
Philosophy: unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
Practical politics consists of ignoring facts.
A friend in power is a friend lost.
If I grapple with sin in my own strength, the devil knows he may go to sleep.
A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops.
Women have, commonly, a very positive moral sense; that which they will, is right; that which they reject, is wrong; and their will, in most cases, ends by settling the moral.
They know enough who know how to learn.
There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.
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