Lincoln Steffens Quotes

34 Sourced Quotes

"So you've been over into Russia?" said Bernard Baruch, and I answered very literally, "I have been over into the future, and it works."

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

Lincoln Steffens
My father, the practical joker, did not care for practical jokes on himself; he did not encourage the practice in me.

Lincoln Steffens
My father required me to honor my father and my mother too much to put up games on them. I did on occasion.

Lincoln Steffens
One improvement I have learned from my childhood experience with my father: I do not threaten punishment in the morning. That was awful. Late into the night I would lie awake tossing and wondering what he was going to do to me. Usually he did nothing. A quiet, impressive 'talking to' was all I got.

Lincoln Steffens
My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being.

Lincoln Steffens
If my father could watch my son for a while, he might realize his own immortality.

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

Lincoln Steffens
I let my boy go and do and say pretty much as he likes, as, and perhaps because, my father kept no string on me.

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

Lincoln Steffens
My summary of all our experiences was that it showed that heaven and hell are one place, and we all go there. To those who are prepared, it is heaven; to those who are not fit and ready, it is hell.

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

Lincoln Steffens
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.

Lincoln Steffens
My father would invite me sweetly to come and sit on a stool at his feet, and, as I let myself trustingly down, he would gently kick the seat from under me - and laugh.

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

Lincoln Steffens
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.

Lincoln Steffens
We need some great failures. Especially we ever-successful Americans - conscious, intelligent, illuminating failures.

Lincoln Steffens
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.

Lincoln Steffens
The best picture has not yet been painted; the greatest poem is still unsung; the mightiest novel remains to be written; the divinest music has not been conceived, even by Bach. In science, probably ninety-nine percent of the knowable has not yet been discovered.

Lincoln Steffens
Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.

Lincoln Steffens
The Soviet government sprouted and grew out of the habits, the psychology, and the condition of the Russian people. It fitted them. They understand it.

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

Lincoln Steffens
My father was slower, but he was severer than my mother, who was quick but light and irregular in discipline.

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

Lincoln Steffens
I hunted far enough to suspect that the Fathers of the Republic who wrote our Sacred Constitution of the United States not only did not, but did not want to, establish a democratic government.

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

Lincoln Steffens
My mother would thump me sharply on the head with a thimble or a spoon if I became too noisy with the whistle when I was playing I was a steamboat captain. She had no sense of the dignity of command.

Lincoln Steffens
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 commerical politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it.

Lincoln Steffens
On Chicago:
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.

Lincoln Steffens
My father made with me one serious mistake which I see parents about me making. He got himself somehow into the awkward position of an authority; I thought he knew and was right on everything - for a while.

Lincoln Steffens