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

August 25, 2025
He that is minded to obey all the commonwealth’s orders, whether through fear of its power or through love of quiet
July 21, 2025
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.
January 10, 2025
01:15
Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail…In the long run of history,
Page 85 of 122