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" My father, the practical joker, did not care for practical jokes on himself; he did not encourage the practice in me. "
Lincoln Steffens
Care
Me
Jokes
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" Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago. "
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" The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered. "
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" 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. "
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" I am really puzzled to understand myself. "
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" My father was slower, but he was severer than my mother, who was quick but light and irregular in discipline. "
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" My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being. "
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" The Soviet government sprouted and grew out of the habits, the psychology, and the condition of the Russian people. It fitted them. They understand it. "
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" Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it. "
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" The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle. "
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" Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization. "
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" The longer I live, the more I feel that the individual is not so much to blame - not even the worst individuals, not even the 'best' citizens - as the system of corruption which has grown up about us, and which rewards an honest man with a mere living and a crook with all the magnificence of our magnificent modern life. "
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" The Russian people, sober, are said to be a gentle people. "
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" The misgovernment of the American people is misgovernment by the American people. "
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American People
People
American
" 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. "
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Mistake
Me
Father
" Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure. "
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Failure
Grace
Hypocrisy
" We need some great failures. Especially we ever-successful Americans - conscious, intelligent, illuminating failures. "
Lincoln Steffens
Need
Intelligent
Great
" Whenever anything extraordinary is done in American municipal politics, whether for good or for evil, you can trace it almost invariably to one man. The people do not do it. Neither do the 'gangs,' 'combines,' or political parties. "
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Evil
You
Politics
" 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
Wait
Election
Government
" I have been contending all my life, and always with God. "
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God
Life
My Life
" Morality is only moral when it is voluntary. "
Lincoln Steffens
Voluntary
Only
Morality
" I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church. "
Lincoln Steffens
Heard
Sermon
Christian
" The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit. "
Lincoln Steffens
Spirit
American
American Spirit
" Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government. "
Lincoln Steffens
Good Government
Government
Good
" 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. "
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Corruption
Business
" If we would leave parties to the politicians, and would vote not for the party, not even for men, but for the city, and the State, and the nation, we should rule parties, and cities, and States, and nation. "
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Party
Vote
City
" If our political leaders are to be always a lot of political merchants, they will supply any demand we may create. All we have to do is to establish a steady demand for good government. "
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Create
Good
Government
" If my father could watch my son for a while, he might realize his own immortality. "
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He
Watch
Son
" 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. "
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Down
Myself
Me
" Most men think graft a sporadic evil, breaking out here and there, with no connection between outbreaks. I shared the same opinion, but very soon I discovered that the graft in the cities always leads to the graft in the State. "
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Connection
Men
Opinion
" You ask men in office to be honest; I ask them to serve the public. "
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Ask
Honest
Men