Henry Adams Quotes on Politics
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A period of about twelve years measured the beat of the pendulum. After the Declaration of Independence, twelve years had been needed to create an efficient Constitution; another twelve years of energy brought a reaction against the government then created; a third period of twelve years was ending in a sweep toward still greater energy; and already a child could calculate the result of a few more such returns.
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Although the Senate is much given to admiring in its members a superiority less obvious or quite invisible to outsiders, one Senator seldom proclaims his own inferiority to another, and still more seldom likes to be told of it.
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Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.
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Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.
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Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces.
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Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.
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The work of internal government has become the task of controlling the thousands of fifth-rate men.