Quotes by Henry Adams

Friends are born, not made.

— Henry Adams

Friendship

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

— Henry Adams

Education

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.

— Henry Adams

Hope

Some day science may have the existence of mankind in power, and the human race can commit suicide by blowing up the world.

— Henry Adams

Education

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

— Henry Adams

Freedom

The Indian Summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth of tone, but never hustled.

— Henry Adams

Life

A friend in power is a friend lost.

— Henry Adams

Friendship

All experience is an arch, to build upon.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

— Henry Adams

Education

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.

— Henry Adams

Friendship

Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

— Henry Adams

Life

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

The American President resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

It is always good men who do the most harm in the world.

— Henry Adams

Life

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own.

— Henry Adams

Life

Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

— Henry Adams

Education

Morality is a private and costly luxury.

— Henry Adams

Wisdom