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
wings politics use
The spectacle [of American politics] resembles that of swarms of insects changing from worms to wings. They must get the wings ordie. For our salvation, Mr. Wilbur Wright is providing wings. He will also have to provide a new insect to use them.
running pride two
There are two things that seem to be at the bottom of our constitutions; one is a continual tendency towards politics; the other is family pride; and it is strange how these two feelings run through all of us.
air campaigns speech
During an election campaign the air is full of speeches and vice versa.
church century servant
The new American, like the new European, was the servant of the powerhouse, as the European of the twelfth century was the servant of the Church.
sex women humorous
The Woman had once been supreme; in France she still seemed potent, not merely as a sentiment but as a force; why was she unknownin America? for evidently America was ashamed of her, and she was ashamed of herself, otherwise they would not have strewn fig-leaves so profusely all over her. When she was a true force, she was ignorant of fig-leaves, but the monthly-magazine-made American female had not a feature that would have been recognized by Adam. The trait was notorious, and often humorous, but anyone brought up among Puritans knew that sex was sin. In any previous age, sex was strength.
queens women males
If it were worth while to argue a paradox, one might maintain that nature regards the female as the essential, the male as the superfluity of her world. Perhaps the best starting-point for study of the Virgin would be a practical acquaintance with bees, and especially with queen bees.
women science isis
The scientific mind is atrophied, and suffers under inherited cerebral weakness, when it comes in contact with the eternal woman--Astarte, Isis, Demeter, Aphrodite, and the last and greatest deity of all, the Virgin.
life trust education
To my fancy, one looks back on life, it has only two responsibilities, which include all the others: one is the bringing of new life into existence; the other, educating it after it is brought in. All betrayals of trust result from these original sins.
truth mind would-be
If our minds could get hold of one abstract truth, they would be immortal so far as that truth is concerned. My trouble is to find out how we can get hold of the truth at all.
book winter ridiculous
For reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs. Lightfoot Lee decided to pass the winter in Washington.
useless showy senators
A senator is like a begonia - showy but useless.
party hands fabric
The whole fabric of society will go to wrack if we really lay hands of reform on our rotten institutions. From top to bottom the whole system is a fraud, all of us know it, laborers and capitalists alike, and all of us are consenting parties to it.
ideas church atoms
There have been times when the church seemed afraid, but she is no longer. Analyze, dissect, use your microscope or your spectrum till the last atom of matter is reached; reflect and refine till the last element of thought is made clear; the church now knows with the certainty of science what she once knew only by the certainty of faith, that you will find enthroned behind all thought and matter only one central idea--that idea which the church has never ceased to embody--I AM!
artist
An artist's business is only to see.