Quote #39

No historian can take part with- or against- the forces he has to study. To him even the extinction of the human race should merely be a fact to be grouped with other vital statistics.

More from Henry Adams

  1. Man is an imperceptible atom always trying to become one with God.
  2. No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.
  3. It is impossible to underrate human intelligence- beginning with one's own.
  4. No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else.
  5. I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.
  6. Philosophy: unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
  7. Henry James chews more than he bites off.
  8. Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

All Henry Adams quotes