Lincoln Steffens Quotes

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Lincoln Steffens

Profession : Journalist

Birth : April 6, 1866

Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it.

Lincoln Steffens

I have been over into the future, and it works.

Lincoln Steffens

My father made with me one serious mistake which I see parents about me making. He got himself somehow into the awkward position of an authority; I thought he knew and was right on everything - for a while.

Lincoln Steffens

In all cities, the better classes - the business men - are the sources of corruption, but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realize whence the trouble comes.

Lincoln Steffens

Morality is only moral when it is voluntary.

Lincoln Steffens

You ask men in office to be honest; I ask them to serve the public.

Lincoln Steffens

Nothing fails like success.

Lincoln Steffens

The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.

Lincoln Steffens

I have been contending all my life, and always with God.

Lincoln Steffens

The Russian people, sober, are said to be a gentle people.

Lincoln Steffens

It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done; not often.

Lincoln Steffens

The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.

Lincoln Steffens

I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.

Lincoln Steffens

If we would vote in mass on the more promising ticket, or, if the two are equally bad, would throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in - then, I say, the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it.

Lincoln Steffens

Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.

Lincoln Steffens

My father would invite me sweetly to come and sit on a stool at his feet, and, as I let myself trustingly down, he would gently kick the seat from under me - and laugh.

Lincoln Steffens

My father, the practical joker, did not care for practical jokes on himself; he did not encourage the practice in me.

Lincoln Steffens

My mother would thump me sharply on the head with a thimble or a spoon if I became too noisy with the whistle when I was playing I was a steamboat captain. She had no sense of the dignity of command.

Lincoln Steffens

One improvement I have learned from my childhood experience with my father: I do not threaten punishment in the morning. That was awful. Late into the night I would lie awake tossing and wondering what he was going to do to me. Usually he did nothing. A quiet, impressive 'talking to' was all I got.

Lincoln Steffens

I let my boy go and do and say pretty much as he likes, as, and perhaps because, my father kept no string on me.

Lincoln Steffens