Henry Adams
Henry Adams
Henry Brooks Adamswas an American historian and member of the Adams political family, being descended from two U.S. Presidents...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 February 1838
CityBoston, MA
CountryUnited States of America
struggle men years
American politics is a struggle, not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central power houses.
believe silence respectable
Silence alone is respectable and respected. I believe God to be silence.
teacher influence eternity
Teachers affect eternity; no one can tell where their influence stops.
friendship men should-have
Every man should have a fair-sized cemetary in which to bury the faults of his friends.
history rich pursuit
History is the most aristocratic of all literary pursuits, because it obliges the historian to be rich as well as educated.
history relation values
History is only a value of relation.
water history development
My own conclusion is that history is simply social development along the lines of weakest resistance, and that in most cases the line of weakest resistance is found as unconsciously by society as by water.
insane president firsts
Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic, chiefly as an almost insane excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards.
wings politics use
The spectacle [of American politics] resembles that of swarms of insects changing from worms to wings. They must get the wings ordie. For our salvation, Mr. Wilbur Wright is providing wings. He will also have to provide a new insect to use them.
running pride two
There are two things that seem to be at the bottom of our constitutions; one is a continual tendency towards politics; the other is family pride; and it is strange how these two feelings run through all of us.
air campaigns speech
During an election campaign the air is full of speeches and vice versa.
church century servant
The new American, like the new European, was the servant of the powerhouse, as the European of the twelfth century was the servant of the Church.
sex women humorous
The Woman had once been supreme; in France she still seemed potent, not merely as a sentiment but as a force; why was she unknownin America? for evidently America was ashamed of her, and she was ashamed of herself, otherwise they would not have strewn fig-leaves so profusely all over her. When she was a true force, she was ignorant of fig-leaves, but the monthly-magazine-made American female had not a feature that would have been recognized by Adam. The trait was notorious, and often humorous, but anyone brought up among Puritans knew that sex was sin. In any previous age, sex was strength.
queens women males
If it were worth while to argue a paradox, one might maintain that nature regards the female as the essential, the male as the superfluity of her world. Perhaps the best starting-point for study of the Virgin would be a practical acquaintance with bees, and especially with queen bees.