Lincoln Steffens Quotes

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.

Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.

The misgovernment of the American people is misgovernment by the American people.

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.

You ask men in office to be honest; I ask them to serve the public.

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

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

Morality is only moral when it is voluntary.

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.

The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.

I have seen the future, and it works.

Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over.

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.

The only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle.

The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.

The politer the society, the greater the lies it requires.

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

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.