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I have got so far as to lose the distinction between right and wrong. Isn't that the first step in politics?

— Henry Adams Democracy: An American Novel (1880)

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More quotes by Henry Adams

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.

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Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Albert Einstein

Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Mao Zedong

Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state.

Benito Mussolini

Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

Theodor Adorno The Authoritarian Personality (1950)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Henry Adams (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.