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" 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

Down

Myself

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

" 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

Head

Dignity

" The typical American citizen is the business man. The typical business man is a bad citizen; he is busy. If he is a 'big business man' and very busy, he does not neglect; he is busy with politics, oh, very busy and very businesslike. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization. "

" My father required me to honor my father and my mother too much to put up games on them. I did on occasion. "

Lincoln Steffens

Honor

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

" We need some great failures. Especially we ever-successful Americans - conscious, intelligent, illuminating failures. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Nothing fails like success. "

Lincoln Steffens

Nothing

Success

" 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

Pretty

Say

" Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure. "

" I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church. "

" The misgovernment of the American people is misgovernment by the American people. "

" Morality is only moral when it is voluntary. "

" If my father could watch my son for a while, he might realize his own immortality. "

Lincoln Steffens

Watch

Son

" 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

Mistake

Father

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

Lincoln Steffens

Care

Jokes

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

" My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being. "

" 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. "

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

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

" I am really puzzled to understand myself. "

" 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. "

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