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.
Henry AdamsRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that modern politics is driven by underlying forces rather than individual leaders, with individuals becoming influenced by these larger powers.
Henry Adams expresses the idea that contemporary politics shifts focus from individual politicians to the underlying forces that shape their actions and decisions. As these forces gain more power, the politicians, referred to as mere 'creatures of force,' tend to yield to them. This indicates a significant change in the political landscape where the true struggle lies not between individuals, but between the powerful influences that dictate their behavior and the dynamics they operate within.
Themes
PoliticsPowerInfluenceForcesMen
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about political dynamics, one might say, 'As Henry Adams noted, modern politics is driven by the forces at play rather than individual leaders.'
More from Henry Adams
All quotes →Of all studies, the one he would rather have avoided was that of his own mind. He knew no tragedy so heartrending as introspection.
Henry AdamsRead
Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.
Henry AdamsRead
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.
Henry AdamsRead
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 AdamsRead
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.
Henry AdamsRead
Similar quotes
To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.
Antonin ScaliaRead
Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street.
Woodrow WilsonRead
Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than _x000D_ bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral.
Frans De WaalRead
No one knows what capacities for doing and suffering he has in himself, until something comes to rouse them to activity: just as in a pond of still water, lying there like a mirror, there is no sign of the roar and thunder with which it can leap from the precipice, and yet remain what it is; or again, rise high in the air as a fountain. When water is as cold as ice, you can have no idea of the latent warmth contained in it.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.
Charles Horton CooleyRead
To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.
Maya AngelouRead