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" You ask men in office to be honest; I ask them to serve the public. "
Lincoln Steffens
Ask
Honest
Men
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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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Only
Doing
Father
" 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. "
Lincoln Steffens
Party
Vote
City
" 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
Lie
Night
Morning
" I have been over into the future, and it works. "
Lincoln Steffens
Works
Future
Over
" 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. "
Lincoln Steffens
Evil
You
Politics
" 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. "
Lincoln Steffens
Patriotism
Honor
Spirit
" The misgovernment of the American people is misgovernment by the American people. "
Lincoln Steffens
American People
People
American
" Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago. "
Lincoln Steffens
Will
Chance
Chicago
" 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
" Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure. "
Lincoln Steffens
Failure
Grace
Hypocrisy
" 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. "
Lincoln Steffens
Man
Business
Busy
" 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. "
Lincoln Steffens
Best
Man
Live
" 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
Me
" If my father could watch my son for a while, he might realize his own immortality. "
Lincoln Steffens
He
Watch
Son
" Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization. "
Lincoln Steffens
Along
Art
Civilization
" We need some great failures. Especially we ever-successful Americans - conscious, intelligent, illuminating failures. "
Lincoln Steffens
Need
Intelligent
Great
" The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered. "
Lincoln Steffens
Most
Jesus
Revolutionary
" The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit. "
Lincoln Steffens
Spirit
American
American Spirit
" I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church. "
Lincoln Steffens
Heard
Sermon
Christian
" My father was slower, but he was severer than my mother, who was quick but light and irregular in discipline. "
Lincoln Steffens
Quick
Mother
Light
" I am really puzzled to understand myself. "
Lincoln Steffens
Understand
Really
I Am
" 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. "
Lincoln Steffens
Understand
Government
People
" Morality is only moral when it is voluntary. "
Lincoln Steffens
Voluntary
Only
Morality
" 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
Me
Father
" I have been contending all my life, and always with God. "
Lincoln Steffens
God
Life
My Life
" 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
Up
Me
" 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
Me
" 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
Better
Corruption
Business
" 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. "
Lincoln Steffens
Connection
Men
Opinion
" 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
Me
Head
Dignity