Lincoln Steffens

“The Russian people, sober, are said to be a gentle people.”

“The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.”

“I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.”

“I am really puzzled to understand myself.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“The misgovernment of the American people is misgovernment by the American people.”

“Nothing fails like success.”

“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.”

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

“The longer I live, the more I feel that the individual is not so much to blame - not even the worst individuals, not even the 'best' citizens - as the system of corruption which has grown up about us, and which rewards an honest man with a mere living and a crook with all the magnificence of our magnificent modern life.”

“The typical American citizen is the business man. The typical business man is a bad citizen; he is busy. If he is a 'big business man' and very busy, he does not neglect; he is busy with politics, oh, very busy and very businesslike.”

“Whenever anything extraordinary is done in American municipal politics, whether for good or for evil, you can trace it almost invariably to one man. The people do not do it. Neither do the 'gangs,' 'combines,' or political parties.”

“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.”

“Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization.”

“Most men think graft a sporadic evil, breaking out here and there, with no connection between outbreaks. I shared the same opinion, but very soon I discovered that the graft in the cities always leads to the graft in the State.”

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

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