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

February 6, 2025
One should as a rule respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison,
August 30, 2025
00:57
Since a rational creature cannot be supposed, when free, to put himself in subjection to another for his own harm
September 20, 2025
Never lose your temper with the Press or the public is a major rule of political life.
Page 85 of 122