Quotes by Henry Adams

About Henry Adams:

Henry Brooks Adams was an American historian and member of the Adams political family, being descended from two U.S. Presidents.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I, too, like yourself was a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was ultramontane. Your party system is one of your thefts from our Church; your National Convention is our Ecunemic Council; you abdicate reason, as we do, before its deci...

Henry Adams

Washington was no politician as we understand the word," replied Ratcliffe abruptly. "He stood outside of politics. The thing couldn't be done today. The people don't like that sort of royal airs.

Henry Adams

Friends are born, not made.

Henry Adams

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

Henry Adams

A friend in power is a friend lost.

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 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

For the first time in his life, Mont Blanc for a moment looked to him what it was - a chaos of anarchic and purposeless forces - and he needed days of repose to see it clothe itself again with the illusions of his senses, the white purity of its snow...

Henry Adams

The habit of looking at life as a social relation — an affair of society — did no good. It cultivated a weakness which needed no cultivation. If it had helped to make men of the world, or give the manners and instincts of any profession — such ...

Henry Adams

The first serious consciousness of Nature's gesture - her attitude towards life-took form then as a phantasm, a nightmare, all insanity of force. For the first time, the stage-scenery of the senses collapsed; the human mind felt itself stripped naked...

Henry Adams

The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught.

Henry Adams

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

Henry Adams

He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and it affected him for life. The habit of reticence — of talking without meaning — is never effaced.

Henry Adams

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

Henry Adams

Charles Francis Adams was singular for mental poise — absence of self-assertion or self-consciousness — the faculty of standing apart without seeming aware that he was alone — a balance of mind and temper that neither challenged nor avoided not...

Henry Adams

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. The imagination must be given not wings but weights.

Henry Adams

A parent gives life, but as parent, gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

Henry Adams

Evolution of mind was altogether another matter and belonged to another science, but whether one traced descent from the shark or the wolf was immaterial even in morals. This matter had been discussed for ages without scientific result. La Fontaine a...

Henry Adams

Double standards are inspiration to men of letters, but they are apt to be fatal to politicians.

Henry Adams

Unity is vision; it must have been part of the process of learning to see.

Henry Adams

Philosophy . . .consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

Henry Adams

Author Bio

  • NameHenry Adams
  • Descriptionjournalist, historian, academic, novelist
  • AliasesHenry Brooks Adams
  • BornFebruary 16, 1838
  • DiedMarch 27, 1918
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist; Novelist; Historian Of Modern Age; Historian; Writer
  • AwardsPulitzer Prize For Biography Or Autobiography