Henry Adams

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.

Of all studies, the one he would rather have avoided was that of his own mind. He knew no tragedy so heartrending as introspection.

Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.

Church and State, Soul and Body, God and Man, are all one at Mont Saint Michel, and the business of all is to fight, each in his own way, or to stand guard for each other.

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.

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.

Man is an imperceptible atom always trying to become one with God.

A society in stable equilibrium is-by definition-one that has no history and wants no historians.

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central powerhouses. The conflict is no longer between the men, but between the motors that drive the men, and the men tend to succumb to their own motive forces.

History is a tangled skein that one may take up at any point, and break when one has unravelled enough.

The study of history is useful to the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women.

History is the most aristocratic of all literary pursuits, because it obliges the historian to be rich as well as educated.

We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable.

The tourist was the great conservative who hated novelty and adored dirt.

A friend in power is a friend lost.

His brothers were the type; he was the variation.

Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

A new friend is always a miracle, but at thirty-three years old, such a bird of paradise rising in the sage-brush was an avatar. One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly

Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

As a historian, he felt it his duty to respect everything that had ever been respected, except for the occasional statesman.

I firmly believe, that before many centuries more, science will be the master of man. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday, science shall have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide by blowing up the world.