Lincoln Steffens

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

Lincoln Steffens

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

Lincoln Steffens

"I have seen the Future, and it works."

Lincoln Steffens

"Soviet Russia was a revolutionary government with an evolutionary plan. Their plan was, not by direct action to resist such evils as poverty and riches, graft, privilege, tyranny, and war, but to seek out and remove the causes of them. They were not practicing what we and they preached. They were not trying to establish political democracy, legal liberty and negotiated peace — not now. They were at present only laying a basis for these good things. They had set up a dictatorship, supported by a small, trained minority, to make and maintain for a few generations a scientific rearrangement of economic forces which would result in economic democracy first and political democracy last."

Lincoln Steffens

"morality is moral only when it is voluntary"

Lincoln Steffens

"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

"Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it."

Lincoln Steffens

"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

"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

"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

"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."

Lincoln Steffens

"It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done not often."

Lincoln Steffens

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

Lincoln Steffens

"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

"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