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
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. – Henry Adams
American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it. – Henry Adams
Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds. – Henry Adams
No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. – Henry Adams
The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin. – Henry Adams
No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself. – Henry Adams
The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand. – Henry Adams
No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else. – Henry Adams
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 Adams
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
Every man who has at last succeeded, after long effort, in calling up the divinity which lies hidden in a woman’s heart, is startled to find that he must obey the God he summoned. – Henry Adams
I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I’m wrong, I am inclined to agree with him. – Henry Adams
I tell you the solemn truth, that the doctrine of the Trinity is not so difficult to accept for a working proposition as any one of the axioms of physics. – Henry Adams
