44 quotes
I know of nothing useful in life except what is beautiful or creates beauty.
Esther: A Novel (1884)
It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.
Every one who marries goes it blind, more or less.
Esther: A Novel (1884)
We never despised the world or its opinions, we only failed to find out its existence.
Someday science may have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide, by blowing up the world.
Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
An artist must be man, woman and demi-god.
Esther: A Novel (1884)
A period of about twelve years measured the beat of the pendulum.
This view of the case amused Esther for a time, but not for long — the matter was too serious for any treatment but a joke, and joking made it more serious still.
Esther: A Novel (1884)
Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies.
Analogies are figures intended to serve as fatal weapons if they succeed, and as innocent toys if they fail.
Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)
One is a saint or one is not; every man can choose the career that suits him; but to be saint and sinner at the same time requires singular ingenuity.
Esther: A Novel (1884)
Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.
Some people are made with faith. I am made without it.
Esther: A Novel (1884)
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.
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
In this atmosphere of charity, where all faiths were alike and all professions joined hands, the church and the world became one.
Esther: A Novel (1884)
She regarded men as creatures made for women to dispose of.
Democracy: An American Novel (1880)
I have got so far as to lose the distinction between right and wrong. Isn't that the first step in politics?
Democracy: An American Novel (1880)
I am never afraid of pure atheism; it is the flabby kind of sentimental deism that annoys me, because it is as slippery as air.
Esther: A Novel (1884)