Henry Adams
Henry Adams
Henry Brooks Adamswas an American historian and member of the Adams political family, being descended from two U.S. Presidents...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 February 1838
CityBoston, MA
CountryUnited States of America
years two bird
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
history forgotten catalogues
History is only a catalogue of the forgotten.
history historical use
Nothing is easier to teach than historical method, but, when learned, it has little use.
philosophy knowledge past
After Gibbs, one the most distinguished [American scientists] was Langley, of the Smithsonian. ... He had the physicist's heinous fault of professing to know nothing between flashes of intense perception. ... Rigidly denying himself the amusement of philosophy, which consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems, and liked to wander past them in a courteous temper, even bowing to them distantly as though recognizing their existence, while doubting their respectibility.
men practice principles
In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man.
bullying facts serious
Power when wielded by abnormal energy is the most serious of facts.
struggle men years
American politics is a struggle, not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central power houses.
believe silence respectable
Silence alone is respectable and respected. I believe God to be silence.
teacher influence eternity
Teachers affect eternity; no one can tell where their influence stops.
friendship men should-have
Every man should have a fair-sized cemetary in which to bury the faults of his friends.
history rich pursuit
History is the most aristocratic of all literary pursuits, because it obliges the historian to be rich as well as educated.
history relation values
History is only a value of relation.
water history development
My own conclusion is that history is simply social development along the lines of weakest resistance, and that in most cases the line of weakest resistance is found as unconsciously by society as by water.
insane president firsts
Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic, chiefly as an almost insane excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards.