Henry Adams Political Quotations

It is always good men who do the most harm in the world.

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.

You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!

Politics are a very unsatisfactory game.

As a historian, he felt it his duty to respect everything that had ever been respected, except for the occasional statesman.

Whenever a man reaches the top of the political ladder, his enemies unite to pull him down. His friends become critical and exacting.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

A certain secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurking in the breast of every American Senator, if he is truly democratic; for democracy, rightly understood, is the government of the people, by the people, for the benefit of Senators, and there is always a danger that the British Minister may not understand this political principle as he should.