Quotes Library

October 30, 2025

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

Henry Adams (1838–1918), American historian, The Education of Henry Adams (1907), in The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.2

To what systematic hatreds do you subscribe? And to what ends? Can such ends be “flipped”, so that you can instead be part of some faction for good?

The son of a congressman, grandson of one president and great grandson of another, Henry Adams had a ringside seat on things political all his life. His comment should not be dismissed out of hand.


More Quotes

June 6, 2025
The ignoramus has no doubts.
March 26, 2025
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.
May 29, 2025
00:43
The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.
Page 14 of 122